Onion Flowers

I grow a number of different allium species in my garden and their flowers vary, ranging from purple through blue to yellow and dark pink. These white flowers, though, are from a red onion being grown for eating. I planted a bunch of seeds last year but dealing with sun chokes (Helianthus tuberosus) from the previous year made it practically impossible to grow anything else. There are still a few chokes coming up this year but not so many that it’s a huge problem. This is one of a few onions that survived last year.

Redbud Leaves

I’ve said before that I love all the various shades of green in spring and summer tree leaves. Although it was pretty hot, I decided I would go out and take a few pictures early this afternoon. I had hoped for pictures of raspberries which are coming on to ripeness. Actually, I was a bit surprised that there were not more. There were nearly ripe berries last week but I think birds are eating them as fast as they are ripening.

This picture was taken looking up into the leaves of a redbud tree.

Redbud Seed Pods

Although it’s continued to be busy at work I decided to take the time to go out and take a few pictures early this afternoon. In the empty lot beside my office are a bunch of redbud trees and they are now covered with seed pods, which make for a pretty, green picture. I also noticed the raspberries are nearly ripe (I found a couple that were ready to be eaten, so I ate them). I’ll definitely need to go out next week, as there should be a lot of them.

Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’

On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 I posted a photo of Asclepias curassavica (Mexican Butterfly Weed) which I initially labeled incorrectly as Asclepias tuberosa. It has a beautiful bi-color flower with orange corollas and yellow corona lobes. It is really something beautiful. That’s not to say that Asclepias tuberosa isn’t worth having, as well.

In general it’s flowers are a sort of mottled orange with the same color on both corollas and corona lobes. This variety is called ‘Hello Yellow’ and as you can see, is a bright yellow version.

Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’

We have both this and the standard orange version in our back border and they are doing very well. I particularly like this yellow version, though.

I think at some point I’ll get very close and take a few pictures of individual flowers or parts of flowers. The problem with doing that outside is that the slightest breeze makes it nearly impossible to get it into focus long enough for a good picture.

Also, I need to figure out how to get the color temperature set right when I take pictures of predominately one, bright color. Pictures of a blue sky with only sky and clouds tend to come out an unnaturally intense blue. Pictures of bright yellow flowers also shift the auto-white balance unnaturally.

Lysimachia clethroides

Lysimachia clethroides, better known as gooseneck loosestrife, is described in one plant catalog as “vigorous to the point of invasiveness.” That’s actually a little bit of an understatement. At our old house we had this and St. John’s wort growing together just outside our front gate. Cathy thought it would be interesting to see which would do better. I was constantly pulling this up to give good old St. John a fighting chance. We have it in a few places in out new yard. Cathy actually dug some up this year, not to replant it but to make room for something else. It doesn’t like to share its space and will basically choke out anything and everything else. But it does have these elegant little flower spikes.

Water on Day Lily Petals

Here’s a second rain-related picture for today. As I mentioned, we had a good bit of rain today, although I hardly noticed. It’s been very busy at work and I’ve been struggling with a particularly tricky bit of code. It’s working now and I took some time after work to stop and smell the roses, metaphorically speaking. This is a day lily growing just outside our back door. It’s a pretty flower on its own but the water droplets add to it’s beauty, I think. A man once said that if there is any magic in the world, it’s contained in water.