Autumn blooms falling into place
As we head into fall, here are the plants blooming now. Some have just started their fall bloom period, and others are finishing the summer strong. But all are adding color impact.
Mexican honeysuckle ( Justicia spicigera)
In most sites, Mexican honeysuckle (aka firecracker bush) has just started blooming for the fall. The plant is not a vine but instead forms a shrub 4 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter with small, tubular orange blooms. It also has a bloom period in the spring.
The blooms are used by hummingbirds, butterflies and other pollinators as a nectar source. The evergreen Mexican honeysuckle is drought-tolerant and is not eaten by deer.
Grow Mexican honeysuckle in full sun or partial shade. Gardeners who have it planted in their landscape are seeing that it even prospers on a planting site blasted by afternoon sun.
Passionflower (Passiflora foetida)
This native vine is the egglaying site of the gulf fritillary butterfly. It has silver dollar-size lavender blooms that also provide nectar to pollinators.
After a short individual bloom period, the elaborately threaded blooms produce a red gumballsize fruit.
I am not sure how the passionflower came to grow in my landscape, but it is there now, and new plants keep showing up. A gardener seeking to start a
plant could get a seed or rooted stem from a neighbor or a transplant from the nursery.
The three-lobe-leafed vine is aggressive enough to grow over peach trees or sheds, but in a typical growing season, gulf fritillary caterpillars will strip it of leaves as they develop.
The vines also freeze back to the ground each winter, so they don’t take over the neighborhood. If you have a passionflower that does appear capable of growing over the trees and houses in the neighborhood, it is probably one of the several exotic ornamental versions.
Coral vine (Antigonon leptopus)
Coral vine is several times more aggressive than the native passionflower. It will grow into and over large trees and buildings.
In addition to its large size, coral vine has large, heartshaped leaves and showy pink blooms (sometimes red or white that host a large number of pollinators, including butterflies and hummingbirds, but honeybees most noticeably.
Luckily for San Antonio gardeners, just like passionflower, coral vine is sensitive to cold and freezes back to the roots when temperatures approach freezing. Coral vine can also be controlled by Roundup if the foliage can be sprayed without reaching other sensitive plants.
Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus)
Turk’s cap has nickel-size red
blooms that are produced on a 2-foot-tall shrub. I usually describe it as a ground cover because the shrub has numerous stems that emerge from the ground.
Deer do sometimes eat Turk’s cap, especially in droughts. The flowers attract butterflies and especially hummingbirds. Grow Turk’s cap in the sun or partial shade.
Salvia coccinea
This is another red-flowered plant that is blooming now. It produces its tubular flowers on stems that grow to 3 feet depending on the soil fertility and moisture.
Salvia coccinea will grow in sun or shade and is often included in wildflower seed mixes for Texas. Deer do not eat Salvia coccinea, but the red blooms attract hummingbirds and other pollinators that are seeking nectar.
Salvia coccinea is just beginning its autumn bloom period.
Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)
This annual wildflower is at the end of its bloom period, but there still will be lots of action before it disappears. Butterflies will still collect nectar from remaining blooms, but the major action is from the seed-eating birds such as lesser goldfinches, cardinals and house finches feasting on the seeds produced in the blooms.
Provide the neighbors with a few flower heads for next year’s plants or for new beds in your landscape if you are going to expand or move your sunflowers.
Plant sunflower seeds now in full sun on top of the soil where the seed reaches the soil. If the soil is fertile, the plants will grow to 8 feet tall next summer.