Blooming in South Arkansas (including Laura Pedlum)

Last weekend my husband and I went down to Shreveport to do a little shopping (Target) and eating (Thai food).  We stopped in Bossier at a little nursery that from the outside looked full of promise.  The kind of place where the front entrance is lined with gorgeous pots and topiary trees, and all kinds of interesting ironwork.  From the road you can also see a pretty good size outdoor area with plants, so we stopped to have a look.  Unfortunately, the plant selection didn’t live up to my expectations.  The first sign of this was the yaupon hollies, which were labeled as “Yo-Pun”.  Then there were the “Azelias”.  But the final straw, which I have been amused by for the past week, was the lorapetalum, labeled “Laura Pedlum”.  Laura is blooming in the foundation plantings of houses all over Magnolia this weekend, as are the Azelias and, inconspicuously, the Yo-Pun.

 This is what I noticed blooming in South Arkansas this week:

• Dogwood
• A million red and pink azaleas
• Lorapetalum
• Iris
• Tulips (grown as annual here)
• The neighbor’s homestead purple verbena
• Phlox
• All the fruit trees
• Pines, oaks, and everything else that combine to leave all surfaces yellow-green

In my garden, the iris turned out to be white:

The ranunculus are budding:

The watermelon sage (salvia microphylla “Wild Watermelon”) has begun to bloom hot pink.  It is mostly still in the bud stage, but one flower is fully open:

The early daffodils (Erlicheer, Campernelle, Itzim) are fading, as are the hyacinths.  The daffodils without a name are going strong, their cups aging from tangerine to pale peach:

The crabapple (”Molten Lava”) is blooming.  It is one of those white-flowering ones with pink-red buds.  The salvia uliginosa is sending underground runners everywhere.  I had placed an order for some more, but cancelled it, as I have more than enough already.  I love it, even if it is poorly behaved; it blooms sky blue for months.

I was deadheading the spent daffodil blooms when this guy hopped by:

He looks like a toad, but is actually a frog.  He’s only one inch long, but he can hop several feet in one leap.  He held still long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures, and hopped on.