Welcome to Paradise

Made it through the first day of the Wild Blueberry Festival in Paradise!

I did quite well with sales. That said, these are long, long days of intense marketing.

Jean and I are staying with a Ludington couple who have a cabin here, and who are also vendors. In fact, there is yet another Ludington couple who are also vendors. So we all had dinner together this evening. Steve sells his photography, Bill has artwork of lighthouses, and Shirley has knitted items.

Jean made a sourdough focaccia bread to bring and share. She decorated it with vebetables and herbs to look like flowers. I'm really impressed. I see pictures of this kind of thing, but have never known someone who actually did it. It was delicious!

Lake Superior can have a temper, but it was calm and beautiful this evening.

And, because I've had a running joke on the blog for years with flamingoes, here are more different ones. These are beaded.

And now, I need to get flat and rest up to do it all over again tomorrow. At least it's supposed to be a little cooler than today.

See Festival Fun

The Other Handful of Hosta

Jean and I have safely made it to the Upper Peninsula and are set up for the Wild Blueberry Festival which opens in the morning. I'll begin showing you nice UP pix tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I was hoping to show you all the rest of my hosta, but I think I still missed one.

Here is one I've had a long, long time, but have no idea what variety. It was a freebie from Ester. It has never bloomed before, and I noticed just yesterday that it is getting buds. The sun was too bright when I took the picture. It's really more blue.

I really wanted to see this one bloom, and it's close, but only a stalk full of buds so far. It never has bloomed before. In fact, it's never been happy before. This is 'Krossa Regal.' It's the only variety I have that will get really big. I hope it won't outgrow this space. Look how tall that flower stalk is! I think it stays more vase-shaped rather than spreading wide, so maybe it will be OK.

This is the one I've identified as 'Blueberry Tart,' blooming.

This is Vulcan. It continues to struggle, but I suspect it will be fine in another year. I must have hit it with a tool in the early spring because it was fine last year. But as you can see, I've now marked where it is.

This is a success story only in that it has survived. I have no idea what kind it is, and don't much care because it's just plain green. But I stepped on it last year, more than once, so the fact that it's alive is good.

It's kind of a joke that several varieties of hosta I bought way back in the 1990s have completely disappeared, while some that wandered here attached to rootballs of other plants I was given have survived. That little green one isn't any of the ones I bought, and I also had a large green and white one I liked called 'Northern Exposure,' but the deer must have even eaten the root. It's totally gone.

Meanwhile, here's the other happy hosta story of the season. This is 'Loyalist' which was deformed in the spring because it was underneath a piece of wire fencing. But it's pretty much straightened out now.

I do have one other one and it's blooming, but apparently I didn't take its picture. Nothing special. Slim green leaves with a very narrow white margin. The flower is just a regular pale purple hosta flower.

So, that's 12 different varieties of Hosta, and I haven't really been trying. I think the only one in that collection that I bought for full price was the 'Loyalist.' It's also the one survivor from long ago.

I checked all the fences, and closed up my "gates" for while I'm away. Dumped fresh repellant granules in the chipmunk holes. Hopefully things will be in pretty good condition when I return home.

Let the adventure begin!

See A Handful of Hosta

Sedums Almost Blooming

I sure hope that I'll get to see most of these in bloom. I THINK I will because the flowers last a pretty long time. I'll be gone two weeks.

But right now, exactly none of these is beyond the bud stage. I'll show you anyway. Most of these have purple leaves because that's what's up to bloom next.

Here is the brand new one, 'Jade Tuffet.' It seems to be very happy and has gotten taller and even spread out a bit since I took it out of it's little cramped container 11 days ago.

The lovely 'Cherry Tart' that stays a consistent red-purple. Maybe, just maybe, I can see that the clump is getting a little bigger, too.

This is the mystery sedum from friend Betty. I am now pretty sure it's 'Vera Jameson.' I used to have one of these, but it disappeared. This one from Betty is now big enough, and almost blooming, to give me more to base an ID upon.

'Dream Dazzler' was the first of the Sunsparkler Sedums I ever got. The leaves start out with pink edges, but are mostly purple by this time of year. This is one of the small clumps I've divided off the original plant. Looks like it's going to bloom this year.

Here is 'Coraljade.' This is so different from most of the others. I love the concentric shapes of the flower heads. The leaves defy color description. They are sort of coppery green/brown/gray. It's a hybrid, and a quick search isn't revealing what it's crossed with besides Sedum. However, I just learned there is one called 'Lemonjade' that has yellow flowers. Since most of the fall-blooming ones are pink, that will probably need to go on my list!

Back to ones with purple leaves, here are two of my favorite plant purchases from last year. This is 'Wildfire.'

And another winner, 'Firecracker.' This only has a couple of buds yet, so this one for sure should still be blooming when I get home.

The lovely dark-leaved 'Dazzleberry.'

And the last one that has buds- one of the ones I ordered this spring- 'Oriental Dancer.' It is more than twice as tall as when purchased, and it going to seriously bloom. I'm impressed.

It's hard to believe I have all these different ones! I love it. Some of the patches are getting large enough they actually show up in longer views of the garden.

Update on the Bigbract Verbena I dug up yesterday. It is acting like the true weed it is and hasn't missed a beat after being manhandled out of the ground and having its bare root dumped in a new hole. Perky and happy as the proverbial clam.

I have worked hard today. Laundry, almost all the mowing- will go out and finish after I post this. Some computer and minor garden stuff. Piled all the vendor stuff on the porch because I'm riding north tomorrow with Jean and we have to pack it in her van. We leave about noon tomorrow. Have a small pile of things to do in the morning.

See Blooming Sept 1, 2024

Roadside Flowers

This will be a collection of a few plants I've seen flowering along the roadsides in the past few days.

I walked to pay the summer taxes today. The humidity was a killer, but I got some exercise.

Here's a bull thistle Cirsium vulgare. They have big spines all down the stems as well as on the leaves.

Remember a few days ago I talked about a couple kinds of Silene? I got pictures of another of the common ones. This is Evening Lychnis, Silene latifolia, or White Campions. It used to be in a genus called Lychnis but I guess they have all been moved to Silene. It's confusing in more ways than one. It's really hard to tell this one from Night-flowering Catchfly.

Neither one is a very handsome plant. They are leggy and sticky to touch with sprawling white flowers.

The veining is slightly different on the swollen calyx, and the Evening Lychnis has 5 styles while the other has 3. You have to pull a flower apart to check. I did, so I'm pretty sure this is Evening Lychnis/ White Campion.

I learned something new on this one. These are the flowerheads I found. I couldn't figure out what it was.

But these clusters of calyxes looked familiar.

Yup- same kind of growth pattern. This is after the blooms have faded. This is common soapwort.

It grows all over the place here. Saponaria officianalis, also called Bouncing Bet. The flowers are usualy single like these, rather than with doubled petals. Truth be told, I don't like either one very much. But I guess the double one is a sort of vintage garden plant.

Here's one I am not happy to find near home. This is False Cervil, Anthriscus sylvestris, which is becoming horribly invasive. It's easily confused with Poison Hemlock if you don't look closely.

But here's the coup for the day. In the other direction from where I found it a few years ago, here is another patch of the Bigbract Verbena, Verbena brateata,.

But wait. It gets even better! A little farther, I found a couple of small patches that weren't growing right out of the edge of the pavement. Using a flat beer can as an improv shovel, I managed to bring one of those home with me. It's now in the rock garden in the spot where I planted some seeds that may or may not be the same plant- if they are even viable. Hope it "takes" because I love the texture. One reason some plants get labeled as weeds is because they spread so easily and grow without much of anything special. So, I think it has a good chance!

We got a wonderful 0.7 inch of rain this morning. But now, I'd be happy if it stops for a day because I have to do a lot of outside things tomorrow to be ready to leave. Today, I concentrated on the indoor stuff- collecting items to take, paying bills, cleaning the kitchen. It's still quite wet outside, but hopefully the grass (weeds) will be dry enough to mow tomorrow.

Miles hiked in 2025: 327.6

See A New Silene See Bigbract Verbena or Not?

Three Different Brunnera

I haven't yet showed you the other plant I bought last weekend.

I found a cultivar of Brunnera that I don't have, and that I like. There are quite a few, but a lot of them don't have enough foliage interest for me to pay money for. Of course, there are a couple... One of the attractions of Brunnera is that the deer don't like them because the leaves are rough.

Anyway, I bought 'Variegata,' yeah... it just means variegated. But it's big and has colorful leaves. I had to pay full price even though it was badly sunburned. And it may want even deeper shade than where I put it. It got unhappy for a couple of days. But maybe it was just transplant shock. We'll see.

Of the two varieties I have, 'Frostbite' is by far my favorite. The leaves are larger and whiter than 'Jack Frost,' although 'Jack Frost' seems to be a very popular cultivar. 'Jack Frost' also gets to looking sad about this time of year. The 'Jack Frost' may eventually find a different home. It's not turning out to be a favorite of mine.

Here is 'Frostbite' today. (Yeah, something likes to nibble the edges of the leaves. Or maybe it's just the stress of the dry year. I don't really have a slug or snail problem here.)

And here is one of the 'Jack Frost.' I moved the other one to make room for the 'Variegata,' and it is not currently very happy. 'Jack Frost' is supposed to look kind of shimmery. I don't see it. What you can't tell, because I have made the plant fill the entire picture, is that 'Jack Frost' is about half the size of 'Frostbite.'

Ones I might be interested in are 'Looking Glass' with very white leaves, and 'Diane's Gold' with bright yellow-green leaves. I'm sure I'd need to order those.

Today was nuts. For starters, I realized that I've been making a critical planning error. I am leaving at the end of this week for the Wild Blueberry Festival in Paradise, MI. Then from there I go directly west to the Trail Fest in North Dakota (with Marie and Diane). This is a two-week trip with the two different purposes. I thought I needed to leave Friday. Nope. I leave Thursday!

Well, now we have my attention! Today was nothing like my laid back regular schedule of projects. It's been a very comfortable couple of weeks just working on these familiar tasks. Today I spent all morning on volunteer stuff, mostly for the NCT. Then I got things ready and did library, bank, post office, and way too much shopping. That took all afternoon.

I have a list and the clock is ticking. I'll be ready to go, but no more just drifting contentedly from continuing project to continuing project!

See Yeilding to Temptation