Late Spring Flowering Perennials In My Garden
My Spring Garden Is Full Of Late Spring Flowering Perennials
It’s late spring and these days it’s either overcast or the wind is howling! My poor plants are bending over backwards in a howling gale as we speak! But the sky is blue and the hillsides are green and it all looks lovely, especially with my late spring flowering perennials coming to the fore.
The roses have come out in abundance over the last couple of weeks and I have two fabulous pink tree roses in my courtyard which are covered in blooms. My next door neighbor has a cerise one which has grown up over my very high wall and gaily adds to the color mix. These are wonderful roses as they just get on with it, surviving in my garden with very little water and no food whatsoever. After they flowered last spring I gave them a severe hair cut and before I knew it they were flowering again.
Several foxgloves self seeded last year and I’ve been waiting to see what they would look like. Well, my first couple have started flowering and they’re gorgeous. They also thrive on neglect but I’ve been giving them a once a week watering since it’s started getting drier and I think they’re happier for it. I know that foxgloves prefer to have some shade but most of mine have self-seeded in the sun and don’t seem bothered. The coastal air seems to temper the effect of the sun.
My wonderful bearded irises are late spring flowering perennials and are still blooming some weeks after they started. I just love the colors. I’m hoping that they’ll flower again during the summer but I’m not sure if they are re-bloomers yet. We’ll see. In the meantime my tree lilies are growing between them so they’ll take over eventually, along with some day lilies I planted as bare root plants last fall. I must say, though, they’re not exactly galloping along! I wonder if their growth is hindered in some way by the iris roots?
I have a tub of Ixias that I thought would never bloom but they are in full glory now. These late spring flowering perennials are really putting on a good show against the warmth of the workshop wall. I had also begun to despair of ever seeing any flowers on the giant alliums I planted in fall but I see a couple of buds beginning to form. I’m surprised at the fragility of the stems which I thought would be thick like leeks but instead look almost like chives. I hope I didn’t get the wrong bulbs!
A delightful ground orchid in a pot has produced two lovey cerise flowers for me. They can grow in the ground too but I was worried about gophers in my unprotected bed so popped the pot in the bed instead. Ground orchids also prefer a bit of shade although these do get afternoon sun which they don’t seem to mind.
I have a wonderful Regal pelargonium that is just stuffed with flowers. I think Regals are my favorite kind of pelargonium, even though their flowering season is much shorter than the others, just because they are so spectacular.
My peony is not showing any signs of flowering yet which is a pity because I think now is the time. I went to friend’s house the other day and was knocked out by his yellow one with flowers about the same size as the biggest rose blooms you can get. There were only a couple of blooms on the plant, though, and I think you have to wait a couple of years after planting to get the best out of them.
My pride and joy right now is my Masdevallia orchid, bought at the California orchid sale a few months ago and now in full and glorious bloom in my courtyard. I wish I could take credit for the incredible number of bright red flowers but California Orchids have to take a bow instead.
Happy gardening and please don’t forget your 
sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.
By the way, here is a link to a list of gopher resistant plants: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants. If you want to buy plants that deer probably won’t eat, look here.
