A KEEPER

By SKEETER On Tuesday, I showed you the Rock Garden here in my Georgia Gardens. From this angle, you can see a rather large clump of green plant to the right bottom of the above picture. See it? A Coleus is popping out of it.
Okay, I shall go in closer for a better peek. Here, now you see it?
Okay, a closer look then. I discovered this same plant in the Semi-Formal Garden last year. I posted about it and asked you commenter's for help in identifying this mystery plant for me. Click HERE to see that plant from last year. Oh, and it returned in the same spot this year as well.
No one could ID the plant for me so when I found this second one growing in the Rock Garden, I decided to do a bit of research. As you can see in this picture, it is soft and fuzzy similar to lambs ear. It also blooms a cute tiny white flower which the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy.
This is one single plant and I did not put it there even though it looks as though I planted it, I did NOT plant this monster.
I say monster as it is taking over the Rock Garden on the East side! It is growing like a ground cover and overtaking things such as the turtle in the pot. Can you see him in the above picture?
Here is the cute little turtle. I have clipped this thing back twice to reveal the turtle but today, I cannot see him again. Yikes, this is an invasive plant for sure.
As I type, I can no longer see this ground squirrel in the garden as it has been swallowed up by the Little House of Horrors type plant for the third time!
Can you see a spot of red in this picture? That was once a healthy Salvia plant until this plant took it over. Some of you Florida Bloggers may know this plant as it is common in your area. If I am correct with my identification that is. I believe this plant to be "Mexican Clover" from the Rubiaceae Family. Click HERE to see if you think I am correct.

Guess what else is in the Rubiaceae family? IXORA as Tina guessed on the post from last year! With 7000 plants in this family, difficult to narrow down to Mexican Clover. The info says this plant can be found in Zone-9. Funny as I am in Zone-7B to a possible 8. Also it should die when in temps of 20 degrees. Ha, we had ice and snow in January and it still lives in the Semi-Formal Garden! Amazing how some plants do as they want no matter what the books say. Ha, kind of like me some times.

I like this plant and thus far, I am able to keep it at bay. It is easy to prune as I just pluck it off with my fingers. I don't even need a cutting tool! I find it strange how both batches of this popped up on its own and in gardens as if I planted it there!

I like this pretty lush ground cover and think its A KEEPER, (for now anyway) In the Garden...
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Name These Plants Game

By:Skeeter

Note: Tina normally posts her "Plant of the Month" choice on the 10th of the month, but it will be posted tomorrow instead...
This is not the beginning of the Name these Plants Game. First, I wanted to show you a plant which is thriving in my Georgia Garden. This is one of 5 peonies I planted a few years ago.

I planted these pink and white beauties as a root from a package from Wal-Mart. With each year, they grow stronger and larger then the year before. They give me some really large blooms and I can only dream that one day they will be as huge as the ones we had at the old house on Commerce Street while growing up in Clarksville, Tennessee...

Instead of staking my peony blooms this year, I decided to make all the Mothers of the Blogging world a Bouquet instead. I picked some of the pink and white peony blooms and added some purple verbena in the mix as well. Here is your bouquet through the wonders of cyber world!

Happy Mothers Day to all you blogging mothers of today, yesterday and tomorrow as well...

Now lets play a Game shall we....

1. The Plant above was spotted in a garden while in Fredericksburg, VA. Sorry I did not snap any close ups of the little white blooms but maybe you can see enough with this picture.

Can you name this plant?

2. Sorry about the sideways view of this bush but for some reason Blogger turned two of my pictures around today and I cannot get them corrected. Argggg. This bush was also spotted while in Fredericksburg, VA.

Here is a close up view of the blooms.

And also some old pods from last years growth.

Can you name this plant?

3. I peeked over a stone wall during our VA stroll to find these cute flowers. They resemble Blue Bells but are totally white blooms.

Tiny and cute white blooms at that.

Can you name this plant?

4. This bloom caught our eye as well while on the VA stroll.

Here is the bush the blooms were on and many bushes not just one.

Here are the cute blooms up close. Cute blooms aren't they?

Can you name this plant?

5. This tree (which I thought was a crepe myrtle) is located on the River Walk of downtown Augusta, GA.

Here is a close up of the interesting blooms of this tree.

Yet a closer view of the dainty white blooms.

Can you name this plant?
6. Here is the second sideways picture compliments of a blogger error. Arggg. This plant was spotted on the white sandy beach of Charleston, SC.

The yellow blooms glowed from the sun shining on them from above. This bush was thriving in the sand along the dunes.

Can you name this plant?

Here is a bonus question. Even though this looks like an alligator, it is not. This is a small lizard that I spotted on the tree stump in our GA woods. I zoom in on this critter as it would not allow me to get close. I had no idea how much it resembled an alligator until I loaded the pictures onto the computer! Isn't he an interesting looking lizard?

As a bonus question: Can you name this lizard?

The one who guesses the most questions will be the winner. If we have multiple winners (which I assume we will) all names will be placed into the Saints magic hat for one name to be drawn as the overall winner of the prize. Prize will be something to aide you in the garden this summer. I will keep the prize a secret until the winner is announced next Saturday on the blog. The winning name will be selected on Friday May 15, 2009, until then, keep on guessing. You may guess more then once as I want you all to have a name in the Magic Hat. Winner must have a United States address to receive this prize but all bloggers are welcome to play in the naming of the plants as the main thing is to identify the plants for me...

Have fun trying to NAME THESE PLANTS, In the Garden...