Flowers and Plants

Sunflower

Here’s a second photo from our brief visit to Rocklands Farm in Poolesville. Many of the sunflowers have passed their peak and were starting to dry up but a few were still in fine form. Dorothy and I particularly liked this one, with the red added to the petals. Photographing sunflowers can sometimes be tricky because the are so tall. You often end up with very bright sky behind them. In this case, I moved around until there were at least a few trees behind the flower to put a little something in the background.

Verbesina alternifolia (Wingstem or Yellow Ironweed)

In the past, particularly in my first year of taking a picture every day (2011), I often went out into the “empty” lot next to my building. I put empty in quotes because it is only empty in the sense that there is no building on it. It’s full of other things, like trees, herbaceous and woody perennials, and annuals. There is a stream that cuts across it, as well. Anyway, I went out this afternoon and looked around for something to photograph. This time of year isn’t all that interesting, photographically. The plants are mostly starting to turn brown, flowers are mostly finished but seeds have not yet developed. This plant is an exception. It is, I believe, commonly known as wingstem or yellow ironweed (Verbesina alternifolia). If not, it is a closely related species. Anyway, it’s quite pretty, especially at this otherwise drab time in the woods. The two difficulties photographing this are that it’s relatively dark where they are growing, under a canopy of trees, and they are mostly about eight feet tall, making them a bit hard to see from a good angle.

Gartenmeister Fuchsia

I didn’t take many photos today but went out front after getting home from work. These are flowers on a fuchsia growing in a small container on our front steps. The flowers are pretty, even though the plant could be heathier—it’s just a small thing.

I try to write enough to at least fill the space besind each photograph I post. This time, I just don’t have much to say (so I’ll write about not having anything to write).

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

This rose, just outside our front door, has done reasonably well this year, all things considered. I had to cut it back pretty hard after the cold winter we had so it’s not nearly as pretty this year as last, but it’s had flowers on it most of the summer. They are not big, bold flowers but small and quietly pretty. One area where it is assertive is the fragrance. On a warm, humid summer morning, when you open the door, its aroma fills the air and it’s lovely. Rose ‘Perle d’Or’ is a China rose, bred by Joseph Rambaux in France, 1884.

Zinnia Flower Detail

Zinnia flowers are interesting. As members of the aster or sunflower family (Asteraceae or Compositae), they have composite flowers—flowers made up of many little flowers. There are actually two different types of flowers on each ‬single” zinnia flower. Around the outside are ray flowers which have, in the case of the flower shown here, a single petal. Sometimes they have multiple petals, making the overall compound flower “double.” Then, in the center of the compound flower are disk flowers. In the picture here, these disk flowers have orange in their corolla lobes. The little question mark filaments at the base of the ray flowers are their stigmata.

White Coneflower (Echinacea species)

We’ve had an amazing summer. After a rather cold and gloomy winter, which ran over into spring, we’ve had a particularly mild summer. There have been a few hot spells into the 90s, but for the most part it has been quite lovely.

Normally by this time of the summer, the grass in the lawn would be partially brown and the flowers, even the black-eyed Susans and coneflower (Echinacea species), would be bug eaten and starting to dry up. This week, leading up to the middle of August, has been particularly spectacular. The high temperatures have been in the mid 80s and it has been relatively dry, in terms of humidity. And, we’ve had plenty of rain. In extreme years we go most or even all of July and August without a shower.

Black-eyed Susans

No insects today, just flowers. This is the predominant color in our back yard right now. The great thing about black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia species) is that they bloom late in the summer, when many other plants have finished. They are also prolific and don’t need any care, to speak of. They happen to be the Maryland state flower, so I guess that makes them particularly appropriate for growing here (in Maryland).

On a technical note, photographing bright, yellow flowers with a digital camera set to automatic white balance it a challenge. Pictures with one predominate color tend to fool the on-board computer into thinking it needs to correct the color balance and yellow seems to be the color that fools it the most. I almost always need to adjust the color of pictures of black-eyed Susans, unless (and I didn’t do this here) I take a shot of a neutral gray subject first and use that to set the white balance. That’s worth knowing how to do, if you take a lot of pictures of brightly but monochromaticly colored subjects.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

We went over to Albert and Brady’s house early this afternoon and spent a while in their back yard. They have quite a vegetable garden and are discovering the joys of too many cucumbers and zucchini. This is fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), which has pretty but very small yellow flowers arranged in what looks to me like little exploding fireworks. Each of these little explosions is about three quarters of an inch across, so the individual flowers are really tiny.

Sappy Pine Cones

Sometime mid-morning Cathy sent me a text saying that there was a pine tree by her parking lot with cones dripping with sap. She sent a picture taken on her phone (which was probably as good as this one) and said I should come take pictures. So, I did. It was pretty windy today so getting the cones in focus was a bit hit or miss, but this one is pretty sharp. When I first saw them, it looked like they were covered with ice, which really didn’t fit the weather we’re having.

I’m not entirely sure why they drip sap and haven’t actually looked it up, but I suspect it’s to keep insects and other critters away from the seeds while they develop. I do know (or think I know, which isn’t exactly the same thing) that the seeds take until the second year to mature. Given how long they need to survive without being eaten, the sap provides a bit of protection.

Sea Oats (Uniola paniculata)

Traveling tends to make getting different pictures for my blog much easier, because I’m not looking at the same things and driving the same routes that I usually see and drive. The only difficulty is that while I’m actually driving, taking pictures is pretty much out of the question, particularly when driving 70 miles per hour on I-95, which is not the most relaxing highway in the country. We left early today, arriving at our destination before the big traffic jam extends over the bridge and well onto the mainland. The only pictures I took today were from a walk on the beach and included this one of sea oats (Uniola paniculata), growing on the dunes between our rental and the ocean.

As I’m writing this after we returned from the beach I can assure you that we had a great time and I got some more interesting pictures than this.

Lotus Seed Pod

I thought you might enjoy this picture. It’s an abstract sort of image. This is a seed pod of an Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera). That and the other extant species, the American lotus (N. lutea) produce seeds in what is often described as resembling the spout of a watering can. These seeds are not fully ripe and are still tightly enclosed in the pod. As they age, they dry and shrink and become loose. Eventually, the pod comes apart and the seeds are released.

If anyone knows what the little yellowish lump on each seed is, I’d love to hear from you. It’s curious. I expect one little lump on a seed, where the shoot would come out, but these have two — the central, red knob and then off center, the yellowish one. Interestingly, the yellow bump is always on the side of the seed closest to the edge of the seed pod, except for in the central seed, where it seems randomly placed.

Day Lily

It was a hot, humid day today. When I went out this morning, I pulled out my camera to take a few pictures of this day lily. When I did, the lens fogged up immediately. I cleaned it off and waited a bit, but the pictures from the morning aren’t all that good. In the evening it was still pretty steamy but my camera had a chance to warm up before I got home and I was able to get a few pictures that I was happy with. It rained today, so the flowers were decorated with drops of water, too, which is always nice.

Datura stramonium (Jimson Weed)

One of the most common of the “large weeds” we have in our yard is Jimson weed (Datura stramonium). It is pretty easy to spot, because if grows into a fairly large bush, surprisingly large for an annual. It has pretty, little, white flowers but it’s a mean plant in most other respects. First, it is covered with spines and you don’t want to be pulling it up without wearing substantial gloves. It’s also quite poisonous, containing dangerous levels of alkaloids. Because they have psychoactive effects and because they are also fatally toxic in only slightly higher amounts, Jimson weed is responsible for hospitalizations and deaths each year. Just pull it up and get rid of it, folks.

Monarda (Bergamot)

In the back yard we have Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) and Monarda (bergamot) in bloom. The former is bright orange. This is the later, with it’s crown of fancifully shaped, tubular flowers. I love the look of these. They are so different from other flowers and really stand out as a bright spot in the garden. They are growing in the back, along the fence, and make quite a statement.

Rosa arkansana (Prairie Rose)

I thought I’d post a second picture from Saturday, because, well, just because. A while back I planted a bunch of species roses up at our place in Pennsylvania. A few of them are living and one or two doing very well. This is the healthiest of them and is a prairie rose, Rosa arkansana. It’s absolutely covered with flowers right now and is pretty impressive. It is a native of the central portion of the continent, from the central Canadian provinces south as far as Texas and New Mexico.

Yellow Day Lily

The day lilies are blooming. This is one of the small, yellow varieties that seem to be all the rage these days. I think they bloom over a longer period than the standard, orange kind, which is probably enough to recommend them, although I do think I like the color of the orange better. Any color this time of year is welcome, though.

Marigold

Ten days ago (Saturday, June 14, 2014) I posted a picture of marigolds. A week later (Saturday, June 21, 2014) I posted a picture of a hydrangea that we bought that day at the garden center. We also came home with a pretty good collection of annuals and among them was this marigold, which I think may be the same as those in that earlier picture. They sure are pretty little things and very eye catching. This is among the flowers that greet us as we come up to our house each evening. Nice.

Dorothy with Rainbow Eye Patch

My mom has a few class prisms in her front window and in the afternoon, they cast various rainbows around the room. It’s especially nice when they happen to fall on someone, as here. Dorothy was sitting on the sofa with a rainbow on her face and let me take a dozen or so pictures, with various strengths of fill flash. This is the best of the bunch, balancing the lighting of her face with the brightness of the rainbow eye patch.

Oenothera speciosa (Pink Evening Primrose)

It seems that as soon as I get caught up, or nearly caught up, something distracts me and I fall behind in posting again. So far I haven’t missed a day of taking a picture since I started, but that’s bound to happen at some point. Today (which was a week ago, relative to when I’m posting this), I took some close-up pictures of the evening primroses growing in front of our house. They are scattered around there and in the back border and are pretty little things, opening up as it gets cool in the evening and closing up in the heat of the next day.

Hydrangea ‘Big Smile’

Last weekend we were at a garden center and I posted a picture from our trip that was of a sea of Marigold blossoms. We bought two hydrangeas that day and this is one of them. It is called ‘Big Smile’ and we really like the color of the flowers, with the deep blue of the central fertile flowers and the pink of the larger petals of the outer, sterile flowers. This picture hardly does them justice and I think they are even better from a little distance. It’s still sitting in its pot on our back patio, but it is intended for a partly shaded spot in the back border.

Blackberry Lily Leaves

I’ve posted pictures of the flowers of the blackberry lily (it used to be called Belamcanda chinensis but in 2005 was renamed Iris domestica). This picture is of the leaves, which are very much like the leaves of the more familiar bearded iris. They are, if anything, even more compressed into a tight fan. I love the pattern of alternating leaves. We have a few of these now, in various places in the yard. We started with just one that we brought from our old house in a pot. Each year we scatter the seeds quite freely and a few have come up.

I recommend this plant if you want something a little different and that blooms a little later (early to mid July) than the other irises. The flowers are not large, only about and inch and a half or two inches across, but they are bright orange, speckled with red and are borne in happy profusion. The fruit are also attractive. The seeds are single seeded but they form in clusters, looking like huge blackberries, which is where the common name comes from.

Orange Asiatic Lilies

This is a very different photograph from yesterday’s, although the color is quite similar (and of course they are both of flowers). These bright orange Asiatic lilies are in a pot on our back patio and are quite happy and very cheerful. This is something we could have many more of and I wouldn’t complain. We should also get them in the ground, where I think they might do even better. They love the full sun they get on our patio and they repay that with a reflection of the sun’s heat in their vivid color.

Marigolds

It was a beautiful day again today. We’ve had more than our fair share, although I’m not complaining. It will be too hot for my liking all too soon, but for now, I’m enjoying what we’ve been given. We went to a small nursery this morning and bought quite a few annuals and a couple shrubs. This is part of their collection of marigolds, which basically filled a small greenhouse. I enjoyed the repetitive patterns and bright colors.

Nick Weber’s Rose Garden

As usual I was at Nick Weber’s Heritage Rosarium on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but as I mentioned at the time, very little was in bloom. Because I was off work letting my eye recuperate from surgery most of this week, and because I was feeling well and it was a beautiful day, I visited again this morning. Even now it isn’t in full bloom, although much more than it was almost two weeks ago. When I compare this image to one taken from the same spot on May 28, 2011, I can see that it’s really only just starting to come into bloom.

Previous posts with photos from Nick’s rose garden are May 24, 2014, May 25, 2013, and May 26, 2012.