A Celebratory September MGD

I must admit, that I particularly enjoyed creating this month’s Monthly Garden Bouquet.  In fact, it is the simplest one that I have put together.  It mirrors how I feel today……the bright colors of the flowers just make me want to celebrate.  

Patriot Lantana ‘Desert Sunset’

Without a doubt, one of my favorite shrubs is my Patriot Lantana ‘Desert Sunset’.  What I love most, is the variety of colors that are produced in a single cluster of flowers.  The second reason that I enjoy this plant so much, is that it is extremely low-maintenance……I just prune it back to about 2 feet in early March, make sure it is connected to our irrigation system and that is it.  No fertilizer, no deadheading…..nothing else is needed.  Don’t you wish more plants could be like this one?

Patriot Lantana ‘Desert Sunset’

Right now, butterflies are hovering above the brightly colored flowers in my garden.  I have three of these Lantana in my front garden.  About 7 years ago, I planted them around golf courses inside of planters.  At the time, I was able to obtain them in 4″ pots, which made them inexpensive and easy to transplant into the larger containers.  After the summer was over, it was time to remove the Lantana and replace them with winter flowering annuals.  Although the Lantana would easily survive outdoors in our winters, they would suffer frost damage and everything around the golf courses had to look perfect year-round.

I could not throw away these beautiful plants, so I planted them in protected landscape areas around the golf courses, gave some away to the landscape crew and came home with 3.  Free plants and 7 years of low-maintenance beauty…..life in the garden cannot get much better, can it?

When I look closely, I love seeing the little buds begin to open…..

 Now this is really cool…….look at the mature flower in the center and  you will notice the yellow florets are in the middle.  The new flower on the right has new yellow florets on the outside.  Guess what happens?  As the first yellow florets on the outside of the flower age, they turn orange and then pink.  How cool is that?

Now, I do not have to go far to find a reason to celebrate today.  You may remember my mentioning my brother and sister-in-law were expecting……well on our way home from church yesterday, I received a text from my brother….they were at the hospital and the babies were on their way.  She had been scheduled for a c-section this Thursday, so we were a little thrown off….we could hardly get to the hospital fast enough.

You know that look that new fathers get?  Well, I was thrilled to see that expression on my brother’s face as he announced the birth of his twin boys.  They are absolutely adorable and I was in heaven holding the youngest one.

Okay, thank you for bearing with me and listening to my wonderful news.  I am getting ready to go to the hospital to visit.  But before I go, I would love to have you submit your Monthly Garden Bouquet.

If you would like to participate in this month’s Monthly Garden Bouquet (and I hope you do), here are the guidelines.

1. MGB begins on the 21st of each month and runs until the end of each month. Bouquets can be submitted during this time (or even later 🙂

2. Create your own garden bouquet as fancy or simple as you like.

3. I would appreciate it if you would provide a link back to my post inside of your MGB post, but it is not required 🙂

4. Add your link to Mr. Linky below and that’s it!

It can be as simple or fancy as you like.  Each month, I cannot wait to see what you all come up with.

******I promise to post Part 2 of Curing the Garden Blahs in a couple of days.******

Have a great week!  

Monthly Garden Bouquet – October

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."