Mexican Heather...Highly Recommended and Often Overlooked

 Mexican Heather is a plant I doubt I would have given any consideration while shopping in a nursery.  It isn't showy really.  My mother bought me some last may to go around a fountain.

There was this old tree stump around the pool that I planted wild flowers around and it looked unkept.

So, I put a fountain on the old tree stump and my mother prompting me to remove the wildflowers (I don't think she cares for wildflowers) We planted Mexican Heather and Moss Roses.  Here there are six Mexican Heathers around this fountain.  This was taken in May 2012.

She also planted Mexican Heather in this bed between the azaleas.  There are perwinkle in front of the bushes.  Also, taken in May 2012.

Mexican Heather grows very fast. It makes a great border plant but they can easily crowd.  Let me show you how fast it grew. 

This was taken in July 2012.

September 2012.  Remember above you couldn't see them? Now there seemingly too many.  The moss roses were crowded out.

The bees love, love, love Mexican heather.  They are always in bloom and make a wonderful border plant.  There are a few things that surprise me about what people like in my garden.  They always remark upon... Chinese lanterns, iceberg roses, and the Mexican heather.  

So I am planting them as a border to my back rose garden.  Now, in this zone it is marked as an annual...but I think that term is very loose.  They do not like the cold but what seems to happen is that the tops will burn. I leave the tops on to protect the plant.  Also, because the bees LOVE them so much, they have lots of babies.  They work really, really well around porches, under fountains...just a great border plant.

Here is some that I planted too early and got burned.  I cut the top off.

I know hard to see but the tops are dried and the bottom leaves are still there.

Here are some I planted after I thought the fear of frost was over and got surprised.  Tops are a little burned but still going strong.  They may be considered an annual but I consider them almost a perennial.

Planting them between the sky pencils.

Last fall, I removed all the Mexican Heather from the front bed because they were crowding the azaleas.  But there were babies left.  I left them because I like the plants but the seeming small ones we plant overtook the bed.  See them in the back in the above picture.

I need to weed the bed again obviously but they are all over it.

So here is the new ones I bought from Lowes with a left over gift card.

This is residual babies around the porch.

So next time you are at the nursery, give them some consideration.  They aren't showy..per se but they are a great plant.

Lagniappe

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

While at Lowe's I, also, saw this.  I thought this might be an easy remedy to the butterfly garden next door until we can get the resources to do something more formal.  I bought a wildflower mix last year like this and it got huge.  Let me show you.  

 These wildflowers are very heat tolerant and seems to grow on concrete.  These are over  9 feet tall.  This is a similar mix, it was a Pennington Cottage Wildflower mix.

Electron rose...opens fast

Tiffany rose

Gold Medal

Tangerine Streams

Iceberg climber

Mr. Lincoln

Summer Snow

Double Delight

Double Delight

I think this is Eclipse.. don't have it listed on the rose map

Close up

Green Ice

Pinata

Roses along the drive that I will be irrigating...will show how to do a simple automated irrigation system in a future post.

Paradise

Another Paradise rose

Climbing Golden showers having a strong Spring flush.  I have learned with climbers you want the canes to go horizontal.

Don Juan

Impatient

They are in bloom

Residual wildflowers from last seasons wildflower mix

Indian blanketflower that was left over from last year

My bearded iris is finally blooming.

Daffodils

These are the roses that I am taking care of at the museum.

This was taken a couple of weeks earlier.  They are really taking off.

Daisies they have bordering them.  I have not been tending to these.

You want to talk about an EXTREMELY fragrant rose.  You can smell them long before you approach them.

Stormy Weather Rose

I zip tied the canes to the fence horizontally.  If you do this you will have a LOT more blooms.  If they go vertical you will just have blooms at the top of the canes.  Going horizontal makes several blooms...You want to go horizontal on climbers.  This is something I recently learned from Nell.

Wildflowers that I didn't plant.

The property is covered, and I mean covered in blackberries.

Driveway...for my reference

Flowers along the drive approaching the creek.

Sorry for the long post but I had a lot of pictures in my camera before the mishap the day before delayed what I wanted to do.