Dahlia in the house
Well it’s Bloom Day for September and the weather has been spectacular the past week. There are a great many annual flowers in the garden such as zinnias, cosmos, nasturtium, calendula, and daisies. I’ll just represent them all with the this big Dahlia that Beth brought into the house. And then maybe Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower) since it has grown to spectacular heights (at least 12 feet) this year.
Tithonia
Another annual that has grown on our porch this year is Plectranthus. It was overwintered in the greenhouse and then took a while to catch hold in the spring. But it now looks spectacular (and it makes a good cut flower in the house as well).
Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’
Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’ in detail
Another back porch item is the Princess Flower which continues its daily vivid flowers
Princess Flower (Tibouchina urvilleana)
At the front porch is the very green welcoming garden that Beth built with deep black rectangles.
Entrance Garden
And a particularly striking addition this year is a Carex with pink flowers that we brought back from Plant Delights this spring.
Carex scaposa
From the greenhouse comes a very striking hyacinth relative from Madeira.
Scilla madeirensis
A few other items struck me as I walked about the yard. There are marvelous peony seeds at this time of year.
Peony Seeds
The Pyracantha and Hyacinth have intertwined to create a lovely combination.
Intertwining of pyracantha (mojave) and hydrangea (limelight)
And a newly planted Arisaema consanguinum looks for all the world like a mother hen for the neighboring Cyclamen.
Arisaema consanguinum and cyclamen hederifolium
Then there are the still good-looking repeats from last month.
Cestrum x ‘Orange Peel’
Crepe myrtle white
And I discovered that the Clematis which I tried to remove at least two other times has sprung up again among the roses.
Clematis paniculata
This is a particularly beautiful and vigorous plant that is happy to take over your garden.
And if you go for a walk on the hillside you will see the Colchicum doing their fall explosion of color.
Colchicum ‘Giant’
The other thing that happens now are berries and other fruit.
Viburnum wrightii
Fig fruit ready for picking
Potomac Pears at harvest time.
And then I’ll close with one of the workers in the greenhouse that keeps the pests at bay.
Jumping Spider in greenhouse
Joyful Moments
Eranthis pinnatifida opening
My granddaughter raised a question in a video-chat dinnertime conversation the other night which was something along the lines of ‘what would you be doing when you are happiest?’ For me it is somewhere between lying on the grass in the warm sun contemplating the leaves overhead and the discovery of ‘new’ plants that are the result of what I planted last year and have completely forgotten about. The latter has been happening a lot lately. Either because I forget more than I used to or I was really busy planting last year. Day after day I am finding delightful new additions to our garden and it makes it really rewarding to explore the yard as though it were a new place each day. Last week it was Scolliopus biglovii (how’s that for a mouthful), a Christmas present from last year that I had quite forgotten about. Probably no flowering this year, but still a nice surprise.
Foetid Adders Tongue (Scoliopus bigelovii)
And now this week the Eranthis pinnatifida.
Eranthis pinnatifida
I discovered this little gem in an issue of the International Rock Gardener that focused entirely on Eranthis. I hadn’t any idea there were so many variations of the Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) which we have grown for forty years. We imported the Eranthis pinnatifida from England last year. At the same time I ordered a creamy yellow cultivar of Eranthis hyemalis from Lithuania and that was visible for the first time this week as well.
Eranthis hyemalis ‘Schwefelglanz’
Yet another new arrival this week was a rather unusual Fritillaria that we also obtained from Augis’ bulbs.
Fritillaria stenanthera ‘Ihnatshai’
This promises to be a very interesting flower as it opens up.
The small species Iris are also showing up in the Monument bed just now.
Iris danfordiae
And then there are the three yellow flavors of Adonis — plain, special, and extra-special.
Adonis amurensis
Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’
Adonis amurensis ‘Sandanzaki’
In the greenhouse the Ferrarias are continuing to open up. Here are three flavors of Ferraria crispa.
Ferraria crispa
Ferraria crispa ssp.nortierii
Ferraria crispa
The wonderful Scilla peruviana has flowered extravagantly and earned a spot inside the house.
Scilla peruviana in pot
Also in the house right now is a pot of Freesia.
Freesia leichtlinii
And soon to be arriving is this Tulbaghia that is just opening up.
Tulbaghia simmleri
I was busy photographing the water droplets on the Aeonium in the greenhouse when a surprising visitor popped in front of my lens.
Waterdrops on Aeonium
Jumping Spider (Sitticus pubescens?)
I’m just guessing at the species from web photos. There are a lot of spiders in the world. Anyway, that was another joyful moment…
A Natural Greenhouse
Lewisia tweedyi
Pleione formosana
Boechera (Arabis) koehleri (planted January 24)
When you are using your greenhouse to grow special plants like Lewisia tweedyi or Pleione formosana, or seedlings of an unusual western rock cress, you might be forgiven by reacting to the first sign of aphids with an immediate fog of insecticide. However, I decided last winter that I would try to make the greenhouse as much of a natural environment as I could. The windows open to the out of doors on warm days without screens so that insects are free to come and go. The greenhouse manufacturer said that people liked this idea for pollination but I was thinking more about insect control.
In early December when I first began operations I saw a few ladybugs taking refuge from the cold. I had hoped they might settle in, perhaps laying eggs. And last week I saw my first ladybug larva busily patrolling the leaves for aphids.
Lady Bug larva
They are voracious eaters (think of teenagers eating between meals).
And yesterday I spied a praying mantis.
Small Preying Mantis
I had seen an egg case in the hillside garden and put it into the greenhouse in February. Though I never saw the hatching take place, they are apparently growing fast. Unfortunately a few minutes later I saw this one get trapped in a spider’s web. While both seemed to be about the same size, the spider definitely won the battle. But there should be many more praying mantis wandering around the greenhouse at this point.
While i was watching the praying mantis and spider struggle I looked up and saw the dominant actor in the food chain.
Large wooly spider on citrus leaf
This guy was alert and ready for action. So while I do see aphids here and there, nature’s enforcer’s are busy keeping things within bounds.
Spider with turquoise bib
Focus on A Birthday Gift!
Gaillardia detail
This supermacro photo of the center of a Gaillardia flower is a birthday gift for Tuna. She is the queen of small things and has taught me to appreciate objects like the tiny Epimedium flowers that my aged eyes might otherwise have missed. Indeed I’ve found whole new worlds of beauty within the objects that I might otherwise pass by. Included with the gift of this photo is the software that I used to create it. Or at least the recommendation that Tuna should cash the check that we are sending and consider using it to purchase the Helicon Focus software that lets you combine pictures taken at different planes of focus in order to create a picture with extremely sharp focus over the whole image. This is particularly useful for macro photography but also applies to landscape photography when you want to maintain both near and far objects in focus. The company makes a complete working version of the software available for 30 days.
Other samples of my experimentations on Macros using this approach are shown below:
Stamens and Pistil on a Stella D'Oro Daylily
Tiny spider with fly on Snapdragon
Snapdragon center
Happy Birthday Tuna!
Fall is on its way
A final flowering for Fall
We’re going through the last burst of flowering around here as the weather has been delightful — 70’s in the daytime and 50 at night. We could still use a bit more water but at these temperatures it’s not so bad. Probably the flowers capturing my eye the most at the moment are from a late purchase last year.
A Fall winner
I’m not sure what these are anymore. The leaves are very narrow for a Helianthus but they seem quite late for a Heliopsis. In either case they are flowering up a storm right now and they are covered with buds. The buds have a very characteristic way of unrolling which I should recognize — anyway it looks familiar.
Of course in the Fall you expect to see Chysanthemums and they are certainly performing up to snuff.
Fall Chrysanthemum
I also found the New England Aster to be especially pretty this year. That purple/violet has way of electrifying the portion of the garden they inhabit.
New England Aster
And it’s hard not to sing praises to the Dahlias in the Fall. Even those in the garden where I no longer remember what the names are.
Dahlia in the Garden
It’s also a time to be grateful for the younger me who planted a Viburnum by the deck twenty years ago (I think it’s Viburnum wrightii).
Viburnum wrightii
And then we have the more recent addition of a tiny Sedum forest in the rock garden.
Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’
Of course we are not the only ones planting on this property. The volunteer goldenrod plants are particularly spectacular at this time of year. The bees and other insects pleasure in the intricate yellow blooms.
Goldenrod
Which Goldenrod this is will have to be subject of a separate post because there are a fair number that grow in Maryland.
The butterflies are still playing hereabouts. This cute little Skipper stopped by the Cosmos plantings but didn’t leave a detailed card with his name on it.
Some kind of Skipper on Cosmos
And nearby there was a spider that would be happy to dine on smaller insects.
Spider on Cosmos
Again the weather has been joyful and our froggie couple has been cuddling together watching the Fall flowers develop. May you enjoy the season as much as we have…
The froggies get ready for Fall
Return of the Poppies
Last year, after planting bed of daffodils on the hillside, I decided to overlay the daffodils with poppy seed. Now I have planted poppies many times over the years but I’ve not had much success since we began to get other things growing and mulching it all. The poppies seem to like bare earth to get going in. This time I went beyond a few packets. I ordered 2 “packs of poppies” from Wildseed Farms. And as a result we got the best stand of poppies that we’ve had in years. First the daffodils did their thing and then in June and July we were getting many beautiful poppies. And on one of the poppies I found the most beautiful little blue-eyed spider who somehow adapted to a flower that he/she had no reason to expect to be in Maryland.
Poppies flowering after the daffodils in June
Shirley Poppy
California Poppy
Spider with baby blue eyes
I grew up in Southern California and I’ve always had a soft spot for California Poppies. They volunteer along the roadsides and can appear with great abundance in the desert in a year with good rains. I took this picture in Joshua Tree National Monument last year.
California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica) in Joshua Tree National Monument
In addition to enjoying them last year one of my hopes was that they would self seed and come back again along with the daffodils. The weather was just warm enough over Christmas that I noticed the seedling poppies emerging. They are pretty hardy little plants so I’m hopeful that they will survive the freezing weather yet to come.
California Poppy seedling