If you have been following along for a while you know that we participate in GBBD hosted by May Dreams Gardens. We show you what is blooming here at Ravencourt. May Dreams Gardens is the host and if you go to her site you can see what is blooming in other bloggers gardens. May is a lovely time of year here in Houston. This one has been especially raining. The flowers seem quite happy!  We will start with the Bernice Legacy Bearded Iris which is continuing to bloom. Here is a new plant for us and I have looked and can’t find the actual name of this beautiful daylily. It might be Daylily Pardon Me. And a close up of our new star! It is so vibrant that it catches your eye from the office window. Tucked in on this same east facing bed that I have been playing with for 2 years are some plants I didn’t plant. Like this squash. I love the flower and I am pretty sure it is a butter nut squash flower. We get them often from the co-op farm-share and I save the seeds for the birds. We are planing to dig it up and put it in the veggie garden this weekend.Here is another little volunteer I have seen else where in the garden. I have become more observant of the “weeds” hoping some might be native wildflowers. This is Commelina cyanea sometimes called Wandering Jew or Scurvy weed. It is native to Eastern Australia. It is actually edible but I will save that for another post. I am not to fussy and am happy to let this little guy stay unless it starts taking over. I am working on a cottage look in this bed. The bed started as a rambling rose bed which worked well when the dogs were allowed in the front garden. They loved to run along the fence and the roses stopped them from making a big rut. The Veilchenblau still has roses but they have turned from light blue violet to dark purple magenta.The Dr. Huey’s are still in bloom but less and less flowers. I think they are due for a good trimming when the flowers are all gone. I  am also using this bed as a test garden for plants I hope will do well and I might use in my designs. The yarrow is almost blooming and I love the little buds, this is Achillea millefolum ‘Terra Cotta’ yarrow. I love the silver gray foliage color. Here are the flowers of another new plant. Any guesses? A little fuzzy and all tangled up in the leaves of a Louisiana iris and very hard to focus on. Yes it is a Heuchera, Frosted Violet Coral Bells. I just love the leaves. This bed gets morning sun and they have rooted in and doubled in size, not sure how they will do with summer heat and humidity. It grows in a tight mound and is a hybrid coral bells cultivar. The parent plants are H. ‘Silver Lode’ (female/seed parent) and H. ‘Bronze Wave’ (male/pollen parent). New leaves emerge pink-purple in spring, but gradually mature to silvery-purple and even plum-purple with dark veining. They can take on a fluorescent appearance when sun strikes the leaf-surface hairs. The variegated leaves on the right are from a Jewels of Opar that died back in the frost and is coming back strong this spring.In the urns that flank the brick path to the porch are two ‘Twist of Lime’ Abelia.  Both the Coral bells and these abelias came from Buchanan’s Native Plants located here in the Heights but know all over Houston as a go to nursery for wonderful plants and planting advice. They always have something fun I want to try!As I was walking by the porch the Crown of Thorns caught my eye! They are very happy this spring and I think it is the new rain-barrel we installed around the corner so we can water the porch plants with rain water. That city water was not doing it for them : )And a close up…the hot red is so intense the camera can’t handle it. Our last bloom to share from the front garden is the Blue chip buddleia. It is one of my favorite plants. It starts blooming in May and continues on through the summer. We have a row of Blue Chips buddleia in front of our citrus tree hedge. This bloom is over the newly planted Jerusalem Sage. I can’t wait till it blooms its big puffy yellow flowers. Our last bloom is in the back garden. It is a Senecio confusus ‘Sao Paulo’ – Mexican Flame Vine. It is sharing the space with a Tangerine Crossvine. We will see how that goes.

I decided to stop here to keep this post from getting too long. It is spring and there are more flowers in the ROW strip, down both sides of the house and here in the back garden.

Happy Gardening!