FFTD Bonus: Final Pass of the Space Shuttle Enterprise

Friday morning our friend Andy Lenzini rushed by cab across the entire width of Manhattan 

arriving at 49th St. and 12th Ave. just in time to see the final pass of the Space Shuttle

Enterprise and take these amazing images. 

Flower for the Day 4-30-12

When I was a child growing up in La Grange Illinois my dad had a peony bush by the house that was just like this one.

 

If you look closely you can almost see the ants that always crawled out onto the table when my mother brought them inside.

 

FFTD Bonus Amaryllis 4-27-12

About a year ago our painted birdbath Amaryllis was decapitated by a tree that fell onto the deck in a severe windstorm.

 

She has since taken up residence in the front yard of our chalet (#134)  where she waits patiently for a facial makeover and for someone to "color" her hair.

 

Flower for the Day 4-27-12

A Field of Sweet William for for your pleasure. Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) 

is reportedly named after Shakespeare or William of York, or William the Conqueroror just about any William you can think of including my grandson William of Denver.

 

 

 

 

Flower for the Day 4-26-12

Lavender Lavandula angustifolia  This is Jan's favorite plant which lives in a containeron the deck and has wintered over for decades. It has just bloomed.

 

The flower spike is topped  by purple bracts which are modified flower clusters.

 

Flower for the Day 4-25-12

Wall Flower  Erysimum. This striking flower has been the first to come up every year in the wildflower garden near the Frank Lloyd Wright house.

 

It's vernacular name comes from its ability to grow well in dry places such as the 

mortar in old English walls.

 

FFTD Bonus 4-24-12

This little gnome ( a classic English 'pottery' gnome) is having a Ball.

 

If you are married to an artist you are liable to find anything in your garden. Here resting gently in a hole in a rock is a china snowman last seen around Christmas time.

Flower for the Day 4-24-12

The tulips have been replaced by allium. You may have a sense that my favorite color is purple.

 

 

 

Flower for the Day 4-23-12

This weeks rains have produced iris in all directions.

Flower for the Day 4-20-12

Hidden behind the three dwarf pine trees there are some white azaleas. They are now over thirty years old and are thriving in obscurity.Yesterday I had a right cataract replacement and the change from haze to technicolor

is as amazing as it is welcome. Thanks Carla.

Flower for the Day 4-19-12

Delicate iris have been blooming for weeks. 

Iris is from the Greek word for rainbow.

Flower for the Day 4-18-12

The azaleas were beautiful this year but were hammered by heavy rains. There are two types of purple azaleas in the front.

Karen blooms initially with a single layer of flower petals.

Herbert blooms next with double flower petals.

Flower for the Day 4-17-12

Daffodil (Genus Narcissus in the Amaryllis Family)  I missed the main bloom of thedaffodils this year as I was out of town and spring was way early. I did have a few late bloomers.

Sometimes as we blankly observe the flowers they do not impact us and only

later, remembering them in solitude, does their full beauty impact us.

                 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

                 I wandered lonely as a cloud

                 That floats on high o'er vales and hills

                 When all at once i saw a crowd,

                 A host of golden daffodils;

                 Beside the lake; beneath the trees,

                 Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

                 Continuous as the stars that shine

                 and twinkle in the Milky Way,

                 They stretched in never ending line

                 along the margin of a bay:

                 Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

                 tossing their heads in spritely dance.

                 The waves beside them danced; but they

                 out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

                 A poet could not but be gay,

                 in such a jocund company:

                I gaze - and gazed but little thought

                what wealth the show to me had brought.

   

                For oft, as on my couch I lie,

                In vacant or in pensive mood,

                They flash upon that inward eye

                Which is the bliss of solitude;

                And then my heart with pleasure fills,

                And dances with the daffodils.   

           

                William Wordsworth, 1807

   

Flower for the Day 4-16-12

The bluebells keep coming up.

Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica). These bluebells are pale lavender withflowers (inflourescences) on all sides of the straight stalk (raceme) and do not have a strong odor compared to the English Bluebell which is a deeper blue lavender and whose flowers come off one side of the stalk only which causes the stalk to gracefully bend over and has a strong pleasing odor.

FFTD Bonus: Upper Charette School 4-14-12

While exploring Warren County last weekend we wandered around this one room schoolhouse near the west gate of Innsbrook, Missouri. It is the Upper Charrette School which was established in 1881 and rebuilt on the same location in 1909. It was officially closed in 1941 and restored in 2000. It is nicely boarded up because of vandals. There is a picnic table nearby.

 

I would love to hear this bell ring and talk to former students. I would have beenin first grade when it closed.

  

Flower for the Day 4-13-12

Its hard to believe but all of my tulips are gone already. The yard of my neighbor

across the street looks like a tulip farm. They have hundreds of tulips and I have

well fed deer.

I

Flower for the Day 4-12-12

The phlox has been abundant this year. Phlox always reminds me of the rock gardens of my childhood.

In my phlox bed there are two layers with different colors.

Flower for the Day 4-11-12

May Apple  Also Mandrake. (Podophyllum peltatum)  Each spring this stand of May

apples shows up in the shady woods around Innsbrook. The striking umbrella like leaves 

spread like a skirt.

If you look under the skirt  you will find a delicate single white flower.

 

As you can imagine it is not always easy to see under a skirt but well worth the

effort.

 

Flower for the Day 4-10-12

Spring Beauty  (Claytonia virginica)  is the most widely distributed of Missouri's early spring flowers. The flowers have five petals which are white but seem pink

because of the dark pink veins in the petals. Indians ate the rootstock,  a thick rounded corm which apparently tastes likechestnuts when boiled in salt water. These are so small it must have taken a long time to create a meal.

These delicate little miniature flowers ring our chalet in Innsbrook.

Flower for the Day 4-9-12 Correction

Greetings: My niece has corrected me.This is indeed a bluebell but instead of the Virginia Bluebell (Mertensia virginica) which has flat ends on the tepals,it is the  English Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) of ancient folkloric fame

which has strongly re-curved tips at the tepals.

                                  The Bluebell

               The bluebell is the sweetest flower

                 That waves in summer air;

               Its blossoms have the mightiest power

                 To soothe my spirits care.

                                          Emily Bronte

 

Flower for the Day 4-9-12

This is the normal color for Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) which I introduced under some shade trees near the back deck last year.

 

The plants flowered despite the tips of the leaves being eaten by the white tail deer.