Flower for the Day Bloomin' Garden 5-30-21

At the lake I have been trying to grow flowers in a garden in front of the house. Nothing has ever come up well. This spring I ringed the garden with 15# test fishing line for protection from the deer.With the posts showing it is not ideal but this is what has come up in the last two weeks. These are from native seeds I planted last year.

Giant Larkspur

Indian Blanket Flower and Coreopsis

Penstemon

Wild Foxglove

Babies Breath

Common Poppy

Wow Wow!

Flower for the Day Bloomin' Garden 5-30-21

At the lake I have been trying to grow flowers in a garden in front of the house. Nothing has ever come up well. This spring I ringed the garden with 15# test fishing line for protection from the deer.With the posts showing it is not ideal but this is what has come up in the last two weeks. These are from native seeds I planted last year.

Giant Larkspur

Indian Blanket Flower and Coreopsis

Penstemon

Wild Foxglove

Babies Breath

Common Poppy

Wow Wow!

Flower for the Day Creeping Thyme 5-27-21

Although critically important there is nothing more boring than garden infrastructure - until one day when I look down and see something new. I have been planting creeping thyme (thymus vulgaris) as a ground cover around rocks and stepping stones for decades. Usually there are a few flowers. This year the growing conditions were just right for blooming. I 'saw' a large pink patch near the creeping phlox and thought it was the phlox just holding on longer than usual. Then I looked more closely and it was a blanket of creeping thyme flowers, and all the other creeping thyme was doing the same.

The flowers are in dense terminal heads with an uneven calyx that has a a three-lobed upper lip.

Just another lesson in the distinction looking at and seeing.

Flower for the Day Allium 5-24-21

 We have had allium (Allium sativum)   for many years. Its in the amaryllis family. Allium is the Latin name for garlic and Allium sativum means 'cultivated garlic'. Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Allium in 1753. It is a monocotyledous flowering plant. A monocot is a flowering plant that bears a single seed leaf at germination. They are interesting from afar.

and spectacular up close.

In Praise of Allium

by Denise Levertov

 

No one celebrates the allium.

The way each purposeful stem

ends in a globe, a domed umbel,

makes people think,

'Drumsticks,' and that's that.

Besides, it's related to the onion.

Is that any reason

for disregard? The flowers – look –

are bouquets of miniature florets,

each with six elfin pointed petals

and some narrower ones my eyes

aren't sharp enough to count,

and three stamens about the size

of a long eyelash.

Every root

sends up a sheaf of sturdy

ridged stems, bounty

to fill your embrace. The bees

care for the allium, if you don't ­–

hear them now, doing their research,

humming the arias

of a honey opera, Allium it's called,

gold fur voluptuously

brushing that dreamy mauve.

Don's Blog 'The Conductor'

The Art of Jan Sessions: 'The Conductor'

Acrylic on canvass. 14"x20" A classic.

Flower for the Day Iris III 5-23-21

This has been an extraordinary year for iris. This is the one that I grew up with.

Th Siberian iris have been plentiful.

And a rare orange mainstay.

But the iris I love the most are those with profoundly dark color.

And my favorite.

                 Iris Haiku

           Iris eyes smiling

           back at the man who sees

          more than a flower

 

            Judi Walters, 2011

Flower for the Day Late Bloomers 5-21-21

Each year I take my amaryllis plant out for the summer. In the fall before the first frost I put it into the basement dark and 

in February I bring it upstairs to the light and begin watering it. It usually blooms in March. This year it didn't bloom until

late April. 

The same pattern occurred for my Easter Lily which actually bloomed after the amaryllis. They are certainly

striking. It may be time to retire these bulbs which are more than 30 years old. 

Flower for the Day Spiderwort 5-20-21

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) appears each year in April to May. It is also called spider lily. It is clump forming herbaceous perennial.

The flowers are rarely white and usually violet-blue. The flowers have three petals with yellow stamens and open up a few at a time for one day. The genus name honors John Tradescant the Older (1570-1638) and his son John Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662), botanists and successive gardeners to Charles I of England. When the stems of spiderworts are cut, a viscous stem secretion is released which becomes threadlike and silky upon hardening (like a spider's web), hence the common name.

The delicate flowers are spectacular.

What's in a name? I have hated the name spiderwort because I didn't realize that it was 'wort' and not 'wart'. Wort comes from the Old English 'wyrt' of Germanic origin, related to root. It is used in names of plants and herbs used medicinally. Wart comes from Old English 'wearte' also of Germanic origin. A wart is a growth on the skin caused by a virus or a rounded excrescence on the surface of a plant. Informally wart is used to describe an undesirable feature or an obnoxious person.

All this time when I saw 'wort' I have been hearing the meaning of 'wart'. My new understanding of the words has transformed my ability to love the name spiderwort.

Don's Blog The Arch 5-19-21

The Art of Jan Sessions: Jan creates many special postcards. Here is a favorite. 'The Arch' Watercolor on paper 4"x6".

Flower for the Day Columbine 5-19-21

Each year I have columbine (Aquilegia) in the gardens. The genus name Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle (aquila), because of the shape of the flower petals, which are said to resemble an eagle's claw. The common name "columbine" comes from the Latin for "dove", due to the resemblance of the inverted flower to five doves clustered together.

My columbines last in one spot for 2-3 years. They propagate by seed and so the wind and birds carry them to other areas of the garden. 

I like the native columbines the best but the hybrids are interesting.

Columbines have been important in the study of evolution. It was found that the Sierra columbine (A. pubescens) and crimson columbine(A. formosa) each has adapted specifically to a pollinator. Bees and hummingbirds are the visitors to A. formosa, while hawkmoths  would only visit A. pubescens when given a choice. Such a "pollinator syndrome", being due to flower color and orientation controlled by their genetics, ensures reproductive isolation and can be a cause of speciation.

Haiku: Columbines

columbines –
every petal a swan
embracing his brother

 August 22, 2019 / Isabel Caves