August's Bloomday...

Last April I bought a few starter seedlings of a couple different scabiosa, at least one was supposed to be dark, but all I got was this washed out blueish white.It worked out okay, because all I really wanted were these seed-heads, and they produced!
At the same time I bought a Cobaea scandens vine, both annuals are in the driveway stock-tanks. Because of our very wet spring I didn't plant tomatoes in the tanks and instead just went with these, the vine has gone crazy, but so far all I have are buds, no opening "cup and saucer" flowers...
Walking into the back garden you are greeted by a trio of aralia blooms. First up is Schefflera brevipedicellata.
Next Metapanax delavayi...
And finally Schefflera delavayi...
And yes, I suppose these might qualify as being a little more bud than bloom, however: 

1. the blooms look pretty much exactly like the buds, just a little "fluffier"... and

2. if you read last Friday's post you know I am lacking for flowers in my summer garden

Which brings me to this, another photo of my new orange wall (my attempt to add color), which I am loving now! In this one the plants are blurry, but you can see the blue sky.
This one has the plants in focus, but now the sky is washed out.
Color... this yellow crocosmia bloom was busting out with color in the garden, but in a spot I knew I wouldn't get to appreciate, so I cut it to bring indoors.
And since there was to be lots of entertaining on the patio last week, I bought this tropical bouquet at Trader Joes. It lives in the kitchen when not beautifying the patio for guests.
For just $9.99 it's pretty fabulous!
But back to my blooms. I suppose the Hibiscus syriacus 'Red Heart' is truly the star of August's bloomday.
It was only about knee-high when I planted it back in 2009, but now it's mixing it up with the Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate'.
I bought these bromeliads blooming, so they don't "really" count—although I love them.
NOID orange crocosmia blooming in the shade, so it's kind of floppy.
I was hoping that Vic, my blooming Agave victoriae-reginae would have opened some flowers for this bloomday, but even though his bloom-spike has shot up to over 8-feet tall in just a month...
The flowers are not quite ready to open.
Paris polyphylla 'Heronswood Form' ends the back garden bloom list.
Sadly the front garden is practically bloom-free, just Indigofera amblyantha...
And dried up Santolina chamaecyparissus 'Lemon Queen'—their should be lots of flower power  over at May Dreams Gardens, our hostess for the Bloomday extravaganza every 15th of the month.