A Mellow Yellow August Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day….

Yellow Bells

Summertime temperatures bring a riot of color to my desert garden and my plants are growing larger and larger.  The combination of warm (okay, hot) temperatures and summer rains means that my garden is going crazy with growth and blooms.

As I walked around the garden taking pictures, I came away with photos of a large number of yellow flowering plants, some recent transplants, and a couple of plants who normally do not flower this time of year (I must have neglected to tell them when they are normally supposed to flower 😉 

yellow flowering plants

 Arizona Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans)This shrub has now reached a height of 9 ft.   I will prune it back by about 1/3 in early September.

Globe Mallow

A few flowers are still blooming on my Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) even though it is not their typical bloom season.

yellow flowering plants

 I just love the sunny faces of my Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata), which are a perennial that is sometimes treated as an annual.

Eremophila x

I haven’t shown this plant before, but I do love my Eremophila x Summertime Blue.

They flower off an on throughout the year and I like their bell-shaped flowers.

I transplanted this shrub back in March in order to make room for my vegetable garden. Thankfully, they survived and now beginning to thrive again.

yellow flowering plants

This pretty little perennial is underused in the landscape in my opinion.  

I love how the spent blooms of my Paperflower (Psilostrophe cooperi) have a ‘papery’ texture, hence the origin of the common name.

yellow flowering plants

I must admit that this picture of a cluster of Orange Jubilee flowers (Tecoma x Orange Jubilee) is not from my garden, but from the garden of my mother and sister.

However, in my defense….I did design their garden and I do have the same type of plant in my garden, but my flowers do not look as nice as theirs do 😉

Glandularia gooddingii

I love the tiny clusters of flowers of my Goodding’s Verbena (Glandularia gooddingii).

This one sits in the shade provided by my Green Desert Spoon.

yellow flowering plants

An all yellow variety of Red Bird-of-Paradise (Caesalpinia pulcherrima ‘Phoenix Bird’) proudly shows off it’s flowers in my front garden.

yellow flowering plants

These flowers are not normally found in August, but someone neglected to tell my Desert Museum Palo Verde tree that it can stop flowering now.

Rio Bravo Sage

All over the Arizona desert, different types of Sages are blooming in response to the summer heat and humidity from our monsoon season.  My Rio Bravo Sage are no exception 🙂

Rio Bravo Sage

The flowers of my Rio Bravo Sage (Leucophyllum langmaniae ‘Rio Bravo’) have a light fragrance which just makes this flowering shrub even better.

What is blooming in your garden this month?

To see more blooming gardens, please visit May Dreams Gardens who hosts Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day each month.

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I wanted to thank you all again for your wonderful comments in regards to Gracie’s story.  I promise I will post the third and last installment in a few days 🙂

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
18 replies
  1. Cyndy
    Cyndy says:

    Oh my, that opening shot of the yellow bells with the blue blue background is just wonderful! love all the bloom you're able to get in a desert environment.

  2. FlowerLady
    FlowerLady says:

    Noelle ~ Your photos are stunning. How wonderful to have all that right now in the middle of August.

    I really love your Rio Bravo Sage.

    FlowerLady

  3. rohrerbot
    rohrerbot says:

    Hot hot hot….I can only imagine how hot it is up by you…..because it's hot here in Tucson today!! I think…and this is just my opinion…but any flower that is red, orange, yellow, or purple love the desert!! The texas ranger right now is so purple!! Great colors and a lot of them. I can't believe this stuff thrives in this heat…this heat is horrible!!

  4. Becca
    Becca says:

    Hi Noelle, I bet your garden is even more lovely in person! Blooming huh? Well, I know we get the same temps, but with the lack of water/rain I really don't have much that's blooming right now. I have 2 mexican fan palms behind the built in spa that grow like weeds and are getting so tall, so I guess they are most happy now. The cape honeysuckle is big, but I can't ever figure out how to prune the darn thing and it gets all weird looking! At least the mornings and evenings are getting more tolerable and I can fill in with color with container flowers soon. Until then, I have to post about other things! 🙂
    Love your photos as always!

  5. jeansgarden
    jeansgarden says:

    I love all your yellows, Noelle. Yellow and white are normally the predominant colors in my garden in August, with some blues and lavenders for accents. Since yellow is my favorite color, I always look forward to this season in the garden. -Jean

  6. Rose
    Rose says:

    Yellow seems to be the color of the month all over. I enjoyed seeing the different yellow blooms you have in the desert, Noelle; the Orange Jubilee flowers are really striking. But I'm also taken by your Rio Bravo Sage–wow! None of the sages I see here can even compare to the blooms on this one.

    I finally had a chance to read the last part of Gracie's story–what a moving story!

  7. The Violet Fern
    The Violet Fern says:

    So sunny! The bird of paradise flowers are so intricate and who couldn't be jubilant over those orange jubilee flowers? I love seeing your blooms – so different than north country. Still shaking my head over those sages!

  8. Ami
    Ami says:

    Noelle: I wish my garden can grow like yours without me telling them they should keep flowering! LOL
    Love that yellow variety of Red Bird-of-Paradise, very pretty. And yes, you deserve to show those gorgeous Orange Jubilee flowers!! That purple Rio Bravo Sage flowers seem having the cooling effect to the hot summer garden, wonderful!

  9. One
    One says:

    Beautiful flowers!!! I love the Marigold, Globe Mallow and the Sages. I always thought flowers look more beautiful in a desert.

  10. NanaK
    NanaK says:

    Oh my! Your flowers are all flourishing in the heat not just hanging on. That Orange Jubilee is stunning. I just planted one of those here in central FL and I was excited to have one or two clusters of 6-8 blooms. I had no idea it could look so beautiful.

  11. Martha Z
    Martha Z says:

    At first I thought "what could be blooming in the heat" but yes, some things don't seem to mind the heat. I have penstemon, verbena and lantana, some sage as well, but it is not quite as hot here as it is in Phoenix.

  12. Candy "Sweetstuff"
    Candy "Sweetstuff" says:

    Noelle your pictures are stunning! I wish I had started blogging before the new templates so I could have one like yours. Your photos come out so large so you can see the beautiful details. In Sweetstuff's succulent garden not a whole lot is blooming right now. Some echeveria's and I noticed an aloe sent up a flower stalk that I will have to shoot. But I just gave my prickly pears a new watering and they should give another bloom. Oh and I keep missing my night blooming cereus. The blooms are always wilted by the time I get up. And I forget and am resting my back in the evening! Darn!

  13. Grace Peterson
    Grace Peterson says:

    Hi Noelle, I've got a small struggling Sphaeralcea. I'm hoping to keep it alive despite our winter rains. Yours is dazzling.

    Beautiful blooms including your gorgeous header photo. I can't resist those pinks!!!

Comments are closed.