If you are inspired by photos of other people’s beautiful gardens – or even just by beautiful photos, or by other gardeners sharing their stories – you must visit The Propagator’s Blog where every weekend dozens of gardeners join in sharing six photos of something related to their gardens that week.
This Saturday found me wandering the streets of my neighborhood, post- afternoon rainstorm, in search of my recycling bin which has disappeared. It was well marked with bumper stickers expressing some of my personal and political views, and my house number, so I was surprised that it grew feet.
No luck finding the bin, but instead I captured these six neighborhood views:
1. Liriope Lawn Border
People love liriope – also called “monkey grass” – in The South. It’s evergreen, grows into a nice tight row very fast, and blooms with cute pink flowers that don’t have to be deadheaded! In fact they will form berries/seedpods and help the plants multiply (the plants will also spread by root division with no help at all). Some gardeners might be tempted to label liriope “invasive” but that would be blasphemy here in my neighborhood.
2. A Neighbor’s Flowerbed
A pretty bed of annual flowers really brightens up this historic home and is always well kept, year round. The building happens to serve as a funeral home, and is one of the more beautiful structures, architecturally, in our neighborhood.
3. Sidewalk Dahlia
A neighbor was kind to share this beautiful dahlia bloom with passersby, by allowing it to grow right out onto the sidewalk.
4. Right-of-Way Flowerbed Vine
I’m being politically correct there in my description of where I found this pretty little vine. Usually it’s called the “hell strip” – that narrow piece of earth between the street and the sidewalk, owned by the City but that we homeowners are required to maintain. It’s not wide enough to grow much of anything, and of course is subject to pedestrian traffic, dog doodle, wayward bicycles and even the occasional vehicle leaving the road. The strip in front of my own house has been the scene of two drunk driving accidents in just the past year! Not much point in trying to grow delicate vines like this in front of my house; I’m barely keeping the grass safe. I believe this vine may be what’s called the firecracker vine, although it had no flowers on it today so I couldn’t be certain.
5. Sweet Autumn Clematis
Hard to believe it is already late summer but there can be no doubt when the sweet autumn clematis begins to cover entire trees and fence-lines throughout the neighborhood. It’s a pretty thing, unless it’s growing in your own tiny yard.
6. Mimosa
Another invasive plant, this time a tree, that is so beautiful I can’t hold a grudge. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from pulling up every mimosa seedling I see anywhere in my yard or garden, as quickly as possible. Plenty of them are growing in the neighborhood; they don’t need to take over my yard, too.
My Own Little Allotment 
I really like that Liriope hedgelet, and that looks like the effects of all the rain right there on the path beside it!
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Most definitely!
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Such a great idea to edge the path with liriope, and I agree that what some may call invasive can also be considered healthy and vigorous!
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Yes, I think about this frequently. I have a long history as a gardener with invasive plants, even before I ever heard the word used. As a newlywed, lo many years ago, we moved into a small rental house next door to an older couple who had a beautifully kept yard. I was new to Georgia and had not seen some of the flowers in her garden, outside a flower shop. One day I asked her if I could possibly dig up a few of the pretty little purple flowers I’d noticed growing in masses in her side yard – I’d been admiring their blooms out my kitchen window every day. She laughed at me and answered that I was free to dig up as many as I’d like, but she didn’t know why I wanted them. They were so pretty! Beautiful heart-shaped leaves, evergreen, flowers in all shades of purple. I spent several hours digging and moving plants from her yard to mine; she brought me sweet iced tea and encouraged me to take more, and asked where I was going to put them. I had carefully prepared just the spot for them with compost and rotted manure, digging the soil over well. Several years later, when I joined a gardening club, I learned about wild violets being “invasive thugs”, but of course by then I had already noticed how they spread in at least three or four ways, and can’t be gotten rid of once they have been introduced to your property. Yet they ARE so pretty. I also think about this when I am pulling off and disposing of the large clumps of “extra” St. Augustine grass that grows out from the ends of my lawn onto the sidewalk, over the curb and into the street. Such a waste of good and expensive sod. But where could I plant it? I can hardly open a sod business. It strikes me that St. Augustine grass is also an invasive plant, especially when it creeps up into our raised vegetable garden beds.
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I have three different sorts of Liriope in three places in my garden and none of them flowers or remotely threatens to be invasive. I suspect snails eat the flowers. Likes your climate better than mine too probably.
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That’s very interesting. I would guess they are sterile hybrids but even if so, they should be spreading through the root system, right? Do they spread at all or are they obedient in that way, too? Our climate really is perfect for this plant, that’s for sure. At another house where I lived, I had areas under trees where I had no grass growing, just very large patches of liriope, which never needs to be cut (although many people do cut it to make it grow thicker, or, I think, to encourage blooming). If yours don’t bloom, they would have to be hybrids, right? I might have to look this up.
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Beautiful Dahlia and Clematis and the Acacia seed pod is amazing
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Thanks!
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Another convert to the liriope club here. I also love that flowerbed in front of the funeral home. Are you able to identify the various flowers? I love the orange ones & then the ones next to them that look like chocolate pineapples sitting on a pastry. Really a great shot. A great bunch of photos (& I’m still enjoying your wallpaper).
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“Chocolate pineapples sitting on a pastry!” Wow! I had to look back at my photos and figure out what those were! I don’t think I have ever grown that particular flower you described so eloquently, but I believe it is something called Mexican Hat, or Ratibida columnifera. I would have thought that was a bed of annual flowers since the orange ones are the annual sulphur cosmos, and they are so prominent in the bed. But Mexican Hat seems to be a perennial or at least a biennial. I like it, especially now that I’ve read your description of it and the descriptions online of how attractive it is to bees and butterflies and even birds, because of the great number of seeds it produces (another benefit – it apparently reseeds profusely). So I’m going to add it to my list of flowers to add to my garden, all thanks to your question! I didn’t even notice it when I took my pictures. Chocolate pineapples sitting on a pastry. I’ll never forget that. How wonderful!
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I wanted to be very specific about which plant I was interested in, but my image search shows something a little more phallic hedgehog, depending on its stage of development. Anyway, I thought the orange ones looked very cosmos. I wrote in an earlier blog about seeds from an alleged dwarf cosmos, supposedly in multi-colours, that all came out orange. I mean bright orange. I’m not sure they are orange cosmos, after seeing these. I’m wondering if they’re really marigolds, altho the seeds are turning out to be rather cosmosy, not marigoldy. May ask Twitter about it. And get some Mexican hats for next year. Thanks for the answer.
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Lora, this is truly one of those conversations where the further we get from the source, the less likely we are to be talking truth. I’m guessing which flower you asked about, but worse, also guessing what it might be based on just a couple of photos that didn’t really focus on it. Mexican hat is a possibility but it could be something different. The orange one I’m sure of. I don’t personally care for orange cosmos; I far prefer pastel colored cosmos. For orange petaled flowers looking similar, I like coreopsis, tickseed, which is a perennial but also reseeds generously. It’s usually short-stemmed if that’s what you’re looking for. It has a more open, flat flower appearance than marigolds and I think it adapts a little better to dry soil, but maybe that’s my imagination.
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