Flowers and Plants

Symphyotrichum racemosum (Smooth White Oldfield Aster)

This little wild aster, the smooth white oldfield aster (Symphyotrichum racemosum) is differentiated from the similar calico aster (Symphyotrichum laterifolium) by having its flowers all or mostly on one side of the stem. These are quite common in our area and are, according to the USDA, found throughout the east all the way to Texas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. I think the flowers are quite pretty individually but since they mostly form large clusters that’s how they are really seen.

Schlumbergera truncata (Thanksgiving cactus)

Dorothy had a two of these Thanksgiving cacti (cultivars of Schlumbergera truncata) at school with her but she didn’t have a place for them this year so they stayed here. We have had them in a westward facing window in our dining room and this one has started to bloom. In the week between when I took this and now, when I’m posting it, the other one has started to bloom, also. Thanksgiving cactus can be differentiated from Christmas cactus by its pointy teeth on the leaf-like stem segments and from the flowers, which are held more horizontally and which are less symmetrical on Thanksgiving cacti. On Christmas cactus, which are cultivars of S. russelliana, the stem segments are rounded and the flowers hang down more and are more symmetrical. Both come from a small area of the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil.

Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper)

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) turns a beautiful red in the autumn and that, along with the dark purple fruit make it a nice ornamental. I’m not sure if it’s because it is native and grows naturally all around the area but it doesn’t seem to be cultivated. Certainly not as much as it’s more upscale east Asian cousin, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, a.k.a. Boston ivy. They both give a wonderful fall display and perhaps the more maple like leaves of Boston ivy is in its favor. But Virginia creeper is a bit hardier (but they can both take significant cold). Anyway, it’s growing throughout the woods around my office and giving me some nice color to see out my window.

Cleome ‘Señorita Rosalita’

Cathy bought this plant this spring and it’s been in constant bloom all summer and is still putting on a pretty good show out our kitchen door. We’ve had cleome before and sometimes it is tall and spindly but this one has a nice, bushy habit, just the right height (it’s growing in a large pot, which adds to its apparent height), and with stems sturdy enough that they haven’t blown over even in the storms we had on occasion. I highly recommend this variety, if you can find it.

Tiny Mushrooms

Fall is well and truly here now and the weather has been beautiful. We were spared any significant rain from Hurricane Matthew and today was clear, breezy, and cool. In the mid afternoon Cathy and I took a walk along the north side of Lake Frank. I carried my camera but only a single lens, the 70-300mm zoom. That, unfortunately, is not ideal for macro shots because it doesn’t have a very close minimum focus. Still, I was able to get this picture of some tiny mushrooms growing out of a root crossing the path. If I had brought the macro lens, I’m sure I could have come back with a better version of this.

Begonia Flower

I wandered around the yard this evening looking for things to photograph. I took some pictures of ferns in the shade garden at the north corner of our yard but I decided they were not all that interesting. Perhaps that’s nothing new around here. Perhaps. But I try, I really do. I sat on the front walk looking at the pink flowers on the hardy begonia that’s been blooming there all summer. It’s very happy and the flowers, while not individually showy, are pretty and in mass, particularly when seen against the bright green leaves, are very nice. Here is a close up, showing the unusual, yellow stigma this flower has.

Grass

We have weeds in our yard and garden. Boy do we ever. This is nothing new, of course, it’s been going on since God said to Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.” (Gen. 3:17b-18) So, in keeping with the curse, we have both thorns and thistles. We also have pokeweed, bindweed, wild violets, and all sorts of weed grasses. Just because a plant is a weed, that doesn’t mean it cannot be beautiful, of course, and I think this seed head from one of the grasses in our garden is quite lovely. It still needs to be pulled up, but it’s lovely.

Dried Rosebuds

These dried rosebuds are in a mug on a shelf in our family room. As you can see, they are a little dusty. Rosebuds are not the easiest thing in the world to dust, of course, and add to that our slightly slovenly lifestyle (we are not overly fastidious in terms of dust here and there, I must admit) and you’ll understand that they have been mostly untouched for a significant period. In fact, neither Cathy nor I know what occasion they commemorate. We both assume it was a wedding anniversary, but beyond that, we don’t know. We’ve had 32 of them, and off the top of my head I know where we were for a few of them. I know that on our 10th I got Cathy ten dozen roses, but I’m pretty sure these are not from that year. I don’t suppose it really matters.

Canada Thistle

I’m anything but a fan of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) in terms of its growth in our garden. That’s not, however, to say that it cannot be quite beautiful. I just wish it would be beautiful somewhere else. Its flowers are not nearly as showy as bull thistle (C. vulgare) and it’s quite hard to eradicate from a garden, once it’s gotten a hold there (which it does with relative ease). We pull a huge number of these every year and every year there seem to be more than the year before. There was a small pile of pulled thistle in the grass and I decided the seeds with their fluffy tufts of thistledown would be good for a picture or two. This is my favorite, not so much of the seeds and thistledown, but of the remains of the flowerhead and related structure. I think it’s quite lovely. Now get off my lawn!

Hardy Begonia

A few years ago, Cathy had a pot with begonias in it, sitting on the corner of our front walk, just outside our front door. Now, the pot and its begonia are long gone, but the plant lives on, having moved itself out of the pot and into the ground around our front porch. It’s quite healthy and happy, with small, pink flowers and bright green leaves. I love both the texture and the shape of the leaves, as well as their color, which I think I mentioned is bright green. This spot seems perfectly suited to the plant, just the right amount of sun, protection, and the occasional watering, both natural and manual.

Liriope Flowers

Liriope is a genus of grass-like, flowering plants from East Asia. It makes a nice ground cover when grown in quantity, although it’s fairly slow to fill in, so you’ll need to plant quite a few plants to really cover the ground. It’s also enjoyed by rabbits. We have some growing along the edge of a bed under a Colorado spruce and it gets eaten back fairly regularly. It generally recovers but who knows how it would look if it didn’t have to deal with that? The name comes from Greek mythology. To quote from Wikipedia, “Liriope is a Boeotian naiad, who was probably the daughter of one of the Boeotian or Phocian river Gods. Liriope was loved by the river-god Cephissus, who was himself the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and bore his son Narcissus.”

Asclepias Seeds

It’s still summer here, but some things have finished blooming and moved into autumn mode. The various species of Asclepias in the yard is a good example, with its flowers having faded and with seed pods bursting with the characteristic silky, filament-like coma or pappus. As the seed pod opens and the coma dry out, they are borne by the wind and the seeds deposited far and wide (to grow as weeds in someone else’s yard. Actually, we’ve had some come up in our yard, which we consider a good thing. But you have to either recognize what a small Asclepias looks like or let your weeds grow a bit before you pull them.

Clivia

Late each spring, when the danger of frost is past, we move our large clivia out into the shade of a viburnum bush. As forest undergrowth plants from South Africa and Swaziland, clivia can’t take full sun but very much likes the fresh air humidity of a Maryland summer. Apparently they can be brought into bloom in the winter if treated properly but ours seems to bloom in the summer or early fall without any special treatment. It’s a lovely plant and I find it a bit surprising it isn’t grown more. It’s quite easy to care for and even when not blooming has lovely, green, strap-like leaves to brighten up a room. You really should get yourself one. As for flowers, there are yellow, orange, and red varieties, so pick what suits you best.

Black-eyed Susans

I didn’t take very many pictures today and most of those I took didn’t turn out too well, but because I did take some and because I’m doing my best to keep up this one picture a day thing for a bit longer (I’m at 2050 consecutive days at this point, a little over five and a half years), this is what you get. It isn’t a bad picture, but that’s about it. If you like yellow or if you are particularly fond of black-eyed Susans you might even think it’s a nice picture. But it’s a picture. I promise to have better pictures from time to time. Of course, I can probably also promise to have worse pictures now and then. Most of them, I guess, are closer to average.

Black-eyed Susans and Verbena bonariensis

We’re back from the beach and the black-eyed Susans are in full bloom all around our yard. There were some blooming when we left but there is no question they are at their peak now. They bloom along with and complement the Verbena bonariensis, sometimes known as tall verbena or purpletop vervain (although we don’t happen to use those names).

My camera has a hard time when I take pictures with a lot of yellow in them. The auto-white balance doesn’t know that it’s supposed to be yellow and tries to ‘fix’ it. The result is quite blue outside the yellow parts and I have to adjust for it after the fact. Not a bit deal, but interesting that yellow is the color most likely to confuse the camera.

Origanum ‘Kent Beauty’

Per the Missouri Botanical Garden, Origanum ‘Kent Beauty’ “is a hybrid ornamental oregano (O. rotundifolium x O. scabrum) that is grown primarily for its attractive flowers and foliage.” Cathy has had some growing in our garden off and on for many years and we love its delicate, pink flowers, as well as the pale leaves. It’s not completely hardy here but makes it through all but the worst winters and grows quickly enough to be treated as an annual. We don’t use it for cooking for two main reasons: the leaves are not pungent enough for that and we have regular oregano growing in our little fenced herb garden.