Standing Cypress Love

I finally updated our list of plants growing in our garden. We’re up to 157 native species and counting! While I’m at it, let me mention that I’ve got a brand new page dedicated to wildlife projects for kids of all ages. These can be accessed any time from the sidebar. I’m feeling so productive!

I have to show off the current eye-catcher in the garden, Standing Cypress, Ipomopsis rubra. Tall spikes of brilliantly-colored flowers draw your attention quickly — show stoppers, they are!

I grew these from seed, simply tossing them all over the front and back yards (which means I have them here, and there, and everywhere!). They are fun little biennial plants. Don’t expect blooms the first year — Year One will simply bring you small rosettes. Year Two is the exciting year — the little rosettes suddenly form growing stalks that keep growing… and growing and growing… and then they stop.

Most of my Standing Cypress bloom stalks are taller than me, and there are quite a few that have reach 6-foot in height, making it fun to measure them against the men in our family. To give you a bit of a size perspective, I present to you in the photo above our Loki, who is much taller than your typical Husky (think wolf-size).

The red tubular blooms make this flower a favorite of… you guessed it… hummingbirds.

While I was outside taking photos, I could hear the familiar “buzzing” of lighting-fast hummingbird wings — I could tell our garden visitors were annoyed that I was standing near their beloved red blooms. Lucky for them, there are plenty of other flowers in bloom around the garden (and feeders, too). So they might have been annoyed with me but certainly not lacking in alternatives. While we have Standing Cypress all over the place, too, those in shade have not yet opened their buds (they are just really, really tall at the moment).

Standing Cypress is generally considered a plant with red blooms, so we were pleasantly surprised to see that we got a few yellow specimens. What a treat!

With luck, these lovely plants will naturally reseed, yellow ones included. 

Such a nice pop of color! That’s Damianita out in front. In this spot, later in the year, the White Mistflower and Lindheimer’s Senna will also add their own color. Hopefully some of the Standing Cypress will still be producing blooms at that time for a beautiful color medley.