Flowers and Plants

Astilbe and Dryopteris

Photograph taken on Thursday, June 28, 2018 by Henry
Astilbe and Dryopteris

Astilbe and Dryopteris

In the shade garden at the north end of our yard, we have a few different ferns. This is the most prevalent and it is some sort of Dryopteris but I don’t remember which. Dryopteris species have various common names including wood, shield, and male fern. In with this is an ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and a Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum) as well as a small patch of sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) that was already here when we bought the house. There are two or three Astilbe plants scattered throughout and they compliment each other pretty well, although a slightly taller Astilbe might be a good idea, as these are almost covered by the fern. As a bonus, I got a bee of some sort on the Astilbe flowers, which I didn’t notice when I was taking the picture.

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Cleome ‘Señorita Rosalita’

Photograph taken on Tuesday, June 26, 2018 by Henry
Cleome ‘Señorita Rosalita’

Cleome ‘Señorita Rosalita’

Commonly known as spider flower Cleome is a fast-growing, tender perennial grown here as an annual (it’s only hardy in USDA zones 9 and 10). This variety, ‘Señorita Rosalita’, is “noted for having no thorns, no unpleasant aroma, no sticky foliage, no seedpods and better disease resistance” (Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder). We love it and it’s been a regular feature in a container on out back patio. We really should plant more of them, as they always perform very well and bloom basically all summer from mid-June well into October or November.

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Zinnia

Photograph taken on Thursday, June 07, 2018 by Henry
Zinnia

Zinnia

It was another foray out onto the driveway for pictures this evening after work. Today was relatively quiet, coming home from work and not going out again, which was a treat after the week we’ve had. Things will get busy again tomorrow as William and Beth are driving down from New York and we’ll be going through a few things in the basement at Margaret’s house. I stopped at the store and bought some ground beef and ground pork. When I got home I made some meat sauce to have with tortellini and also made a meat loaf to slice and reheat for meals in upcoming days.

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Everlasting Flower

Photograph taken on Wednesday, June 06, 2018 by Henry
<em>Xerochrysum bracteatum</em> ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty’

Xerochrysum bracteatum ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty’

It’s been a busy week but I managed to get out onto the driveway with my camera this evening. It isn’t a long walk, after all. We have a little, yellow Stella d’Oro day lily in bloom just outside the front door, and I took pictures of that, first. Then I got a few pictures of the flowers on an Egyptian Walking Onion that self seeded from those in the back yard into one of the pots on the top of the driveway. Finally, I took pictures of this everlasting flower, Xerochrysum bracteatum ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty’. It’s certainly bright and as the name suggests, the flowers last. It’s a tender annual native to Australia but they do pretty well here, if given full sun and blooms pretty reliably all summer and well into the fall.

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Rose ‘Graham Thomas’

Photograph taken on Tuesday, June 05, 2018 by Henry
Rose 'Graham Thomas'

Rose ‘Graham Thomas’

After mom’s brief stay ib the hospital, she had a few follow-up appointments, starting this morning. I thought it would be good to stay with her the rest of the day and because I can work remotely, that’s what I did. I took a short break in the early afternoon and took a few pictures in her yard. I also took some of her neighbor’s roses. This rose is called ‘Graham Thomas’, bred by David Austin, 1983. It is named for Graham Stuart Thomas OBE (April 3, 1909 – April 17, 2003), the famed British botinist, garden designer and rosarian.

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Adiantum pedatum (Northern Maidenhair Fern)

Photograph taken on Friday, June 01, 2018 by Henry
Adiantum pedatum (Northern Maidenhair Fern)

Adiantum pedatum (Northern Maidenhair Fern)

I have always had a bit of a thing for ferns. You might say I’m front of ferns. Or maybe not. Anyway, this is one of our nicest native ferns, the northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum). This one, a piece of one that I took from a clump that my dad had growing in his yard and then dug up again when we moved. It’s growing in full sun and tends to be a bit burned by the end of the summer. I really should get some growing in a shadier part of the yard, but this it happy enough that I don’t need to move the whole thing. The genus name Adiantum comes from the Greek word meaning unwetted, which refers to its water repellent foliage. The specific name pedatum means cut like a bird’s foot in reference to the fronds.

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Rose ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’

Photograph taken on Wednesday, May 30, 2018 by Henry
Rose ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’

Rose ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’

One more rose picture and then I’ll move on to something else for a little while. On the south end of the house I have this ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’ growing. Like the ‘Perle d’Or’ featured yesterday, this didn’t have any problem this winter. I’m convinced the death and near death of the roses in the back are location-related. Anyway, this one is fine. It’s a fairly tall, somewhat gangly thing but it does have these nice, pink blossoms off and on throughout the summer. That garden has become somewhat overgrown recently and is in desperate need of attention, possibly to the point of digging it out almost completely and starting over. There is bindweed (a.k.a. morning glory, Ipomoea purpurea) throughout. But this rose I would keep. ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’ is the first of the Noisette roses, bred by John Champneys in South Carolina circa 1811. It is a cross Rosa moschata and either ‘Parsons’ Pink China’ or ‘Champneys’ Bengal Rose’.

Also, dig the little, unidentified plant bug on the flower on the left.

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Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Photograph taken on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 by Henry
Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

This sweet little polyantha rose is just outside my front door. I’ve posted pictures before but I like this one because it shows the color of the blooms as they open (on the right) and as they age and fade (on the left). They produce considerable fragrance and especially on a warm, humid morning, it’s quite a lovely thing when you come out the door. There is some dead wood on this rose, but no more than normal. It doesn’t seem to have been affected by whatever happened to those in the back. On Saturday, at Nick’s garden, we talked about this rose. He has two of them and one is in almost full, if open, shade, surrounded by hostas. Nevertheless, it continues to bloom quite happily. So, if you have a bright but shady yard and thought you couldn’t grow any roses, you might give this one a try. The flowers are small and not particularly well suited for cutting, but it makes up for that by blooming off and on all summer.

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Pink Multiflora Rose

Photograph taken on Monday, May 28, 2018 by Henry
Pink Rosa multiflora

Pink Rosa multiflora

Pretty much every year I post a picture of this rose. It’s a multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) that I collected from the edge of the woods near my office. Shortly after I dug up a piece, the area was sprayed and the mother plant was killed. This has done quite well in the yard until this year. For some reason, this and the rugosa hybrid ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’ nearly died. Another rose, ‘Blush Noisette’, died completely. I also had to remove my ‘New Dawn’ because of rose rosette virus, Happily, there is one old cane as well as another new cane coming up on this shrub, so all is not lost. Here are all my posts with pictures of this rose.

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Rosanne and Nick

Photograph taken on Saturday, May 26, 2018 by Henry
Rosanne and Nick

Rosanne and Nick

We had a wonderful time visiting Rosanne and Nick in their open garden today. I was looking through old photographs from previous visits. I lot has changed since our first visit in 2002, but a lot has remained the same, as well. With the somewhat odd spring we had this year, with cool weather late into April, which was fairly dry, followed by a lot of rain in mid-May, the early bloomers were still showing off. We usually don’t get to see some of them bloom and that was a treat. Of course, that means the later bloomers were still just in bud. But that’s the change you take. Either way, the garden was lovely. And Rosanne and Nick were their usual, charming, friendly selves.

As usual, I took lots of pictures of individual roses as well as some showing the garden more generally. It’s hard to pick one rose bloom that represents the garden, but if you are interested in rose ‘portraits’ I have a few.

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Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

Photograph taken on Friday, May 25, 2018 by Henry
Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

I know I’ve already posted a picture of this plant this spring. In fact, it was only four days ago. Nevertheless, The second of the three peonies that I planted in 2014, named ‘Coral Sunset’, was blooming and had the late afternoon sun shining through it. I just couldn’t resist another picture of this wonderful flower. With one bloom per plant, we’re basically done for the year with these three. But they were worth it and I’m already looking forward to a total of four or five flowers on the three plants next year.

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Yellow Iris

Photograph taken on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 by Henry
Yellow Iris

Yellow Iris

A few days ago I mentioned that we had two varieties of large, bearded iris in our garden. The one photographed then was purple and white. This is a detail of the other one, which is mostly yellow with brown falls (as you can see). They are not quite as large as the purple and white flowers but are still quite striking. This one is growing just inside the fence to the back yard. Well, what’s left of the fence. It’s an old post and rail fence and the wood is rotting and it’s falling down. A few weeks ago I took down the better part of it and I’ll probably finish the job before too long.

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Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

Photograph taken on Monday, May 21, 2018 by Henry
Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

Peony ‘Coral Sunset’

In the fall of 2014 I bought three peonies called ‘Coral Sunset’ from John Scheepers (https://www.johnscheepers.com/). I planted them amidst the pachysandra along the back of my garden. The first spring there was only evidence of one of them. The next year, two. Now all three are coming up through the pachysandra and each of them bore a single bud. This is the largest and the first of them to bloom. I must say, they are worth the wait. One great thing about peonies is that they are long lived and they continue to grow into larger and larger clumps. These three should eventually grow together into one massive clump that will be wonderful in bloom. For now, I enjoy the solitary flower.

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Bearded Iris

Photograph taken on Saturday, May 19, 2018 by Henry
Bearded Iris

Bearded Iris

The irises have begun to bloom. We basically have two sets of tall, bearded iris. There are these purple and white type and another that are mostly yellow. They are both quite lovely and we could do worse than have them. That being said, we could do with a little more variety. We also have other types of iris, most notably Siberian iris (Iris sibirica) and English iris (Iris latifolia). Some of these bloom later and they are both much smaller, both in terms of overall height and in size of bloom, than the large, bearded varieties.

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Tradescantia virginiana (Spiderwort)

Photograph taken on Friday, May 18, 2018 by Henry
Tradescantia virginiana (Spiderwort)

Tradescantia virginiana (Spiderwort)

The spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) has begun blooming in our yard. Most of them look like this, with dark green leaves and dark blue/purple flowers. The flower color is difficult to catch and is actually a bit bluer than how they look here. We have one with chartreuse leaves, which is very pretty but needs a little shade. We also have one with pink flowers. I’ve read that their flowers change color to pink when when exposed to radiation but this one was bred to have pink flowers. If the others all suddenly turn pink, then I’ll worry.

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Cathy’s Driveway Garden

Photograph taken on Thursday, May 17, 2018 by Henry
Cathy's Driveway Garden

Cathy’s Driveway Garden

We don’t put our car in the garage. There are a few reasons for that, not least of which is that there it too much else in there for a car to fit. But even if a car would fit in the garage, you can’t get there from here. At the top of the driveway are potted plants. Not just one or two but a fairly extensive collection. Each year one or two new containers seems to get added. Some of them start with annuals but then perennials self-seed into them and they transition to permanent fixtures. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, of course, and this time of year, especially when it’s raining and the colors are more intense, it’s really lovely.

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Korean Lilac

Photograph taken on Tuesday, May 15, 2018 by Henry
Korean Lilac

Korean Lilac

Quite a few years ago, my dad happened to see an ad for something called The Seed Guild. If you bought an annual subscription, they would send seeds collected (with permission) from botanical gardens and arboreta around the world. One of the little packets of seeds that I got were labeled as Korean Lilac. At least that’s my memory. If I have it written down somewhere I certainly don’t know where. I also don’t know if it was Syringa meyeri, which is what is usually referred to as Korean Lilac or if it was some other, lesser known species. In any case, I had it growing in a container for many years and then when we moved here I put it into the ground. The deer ate it back one year but it’s doing pretty well now and for the first time has bloomed. The flowers are quite pale, not the lilac that we think of when we think of lilac. Nevertheless, they are a pretty pink, especially from a distance, where the color is more visible.

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Rosa rugosa ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’

Photograph taken on Monday, May 14, 2018 by Henry
Rosa rugosa ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’

Rosa rugosa ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’

I’m not sure what happened last year but for some reason, most of my roses died. One of them, a pink flowered R. multiflora hybrid, isn’t quite gone, with one branch left. This R. rugosa named ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’ also has some life left in it. Nevertheless, there’s a fair amount of dead wood to prune out. ‘Blush Noisette’ appears to be completely dead. It was never a very vigorous shrub but for it to simply die completely was unexpected. I lost my ‘New Dawn’ last year, but that I had to dig up because of rose rosette disease, is caused by Emaravirus species of virus.

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Ornithogalum umbellatum (Star of Bethlehem)

Photograph taken on Friday, May 11, 2018 by Henry
Ornithogalum umbellatum (Star of Bethlehem)

Ornithogalum umbellatum (Star of Bethlehem)

I walked around a little at lunch time today, taking pictures of a few local flowering plants. I started with photos of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) flowers. They are blooming everywhere right now and they produce a heady, sweet fragrance. They also are, I believe, one of our biggest sources of nectar for honey. I took some photos of honeysuckle vine (Lonicera japonica, which is also blooming now. I went across the street behind my building and came across these little wildflowers. Like the honeysuckle, they are non-native and invasive (they are listed as a noxious weed in Alabama although they are not anything near as invasive as the Japanese honeysuckle). They are star of Bethlehem flowers (Ornithogalum umbellatum) and they are pretty little things.

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Pink Flowering Dogwood

Photograph taken on Thursday, May 10, 2018 by Henry
Pink Flowering Dogwood

Pink Flowering Dogwood

This pink flower dogwood (Cornus florida) is blooming again and it’s a lovely color. The tree is way to close to the house and eventually I need and plan to take it out. I’ve planted a Camellia japonica under it, a little further from the house, with the hope of letting that take its place. Unfortunately we had a week early in the winter with temperatures below 5°F, which were pretty hard on the not-terribly-hardy camellia and it was pretty badly damaged. It doesn’t look entirely dead, but it sure was killed back quite a bit. Still, it may pull through. I’ll need to be sure to keep it watered well in the heat of the summer and we’ll hope for the best.

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