More Blue and Purple

Look what's going to happen soon in the driveway flower bed.

These aren't in full bloom yet. This is the globe thistle I transplanted last year at the totally wrong time. It has lived, and has two blooms this year. It's small, but give it another year or two and it will be 5-6 feet tall.

Like these- the patch from which I moved this one. You can see the ball on the left is at about the stage of the ones above, but the big one in the middle is is full bloom. I really love these!

I moved two more up here last fall, and one of those also is blooming.

And then, in the front bed is a nice little surprise that came up last year. We think it was a hitchhiker from a friend's garden in something she gave me. This is only a promise of a bloom. And it can't stay in this location. But if it continues to grow maybe I can save some seeds and get it started out by the driveway.

I'll let you guess what it is for a little longer. But Betsy should recognize it!

It may not really bloom this year. The last wind we had bent the stem. It's struggling to pull water up to those buds, but I've got it supported, so we will see.

In other news: I edited, I weeded, I spent way too much time trying to ID one of my hosta varieties. I really like to know what they are but this one came from a friend's garden and she has no idea. May have narrowed it down. Miki stopped by. I worked on other things. Life is good in the gardening lane.

See The Unrelenting Drive to Reproduce

Now and Future Blooming

 I'm going to miss a ton of good stuff in my garden, but at least the lemon lily graced me with one flower before I leave. I really love these. The old fashioned maroon one hasn't bloomed for years (because I haven't weeded well), but it has two buds this year. You can see it in a previous year at the link at the end. Also, 'Revolution,' the solid maroon one has lots of buds. The other yellow one, 'Young Love,' does not have buds, but it's alive, so maybe next year. I'm sure these would recover if they got weeded two years in a row.

Also in the driveway bed is that globe thistle that was determined to live. Sure enough, it is going to bloom. I'll miss it too, but you can see it's starting to get blue. Either later this year or in the spring, I'll bring it some friends for company.

In that same flower bed are some viper's bugloss (blue). This is a plain old alien weed, but I love them. In fact, I planted some here on purpose at some point. They are a biennial, so you have to watch for babies in the spring and put them where you are going to want them the following year. These are not where I want them, and they are small, but they bloomed, and they look nice with the meadow sage (purple). The really nice ones grow in my yard where they get about two feet tall over the septic tank.

Speaking of alien weeds, I let the silvery cinquefoil grow where it pops up in the rock garden unless it's crowding out something else. It's nothing special, but it's pretty enough. And it stays low to the ground, so that fits the rock garden.

I have no idea if the full blossoms on this will last until I get home. I hope so, because it's going to be amazing. The largest rosette of the 'Red Heart' sempervivum is going to bloom. I've been taking pictures of it for almost 2 weeks, and the development has been slow enough that I'm hopeful it will last. You can see it will be the pink, daisy-like flowers. I really want to know how big they will get!

Moving to the front bed, those astilbe I got for almost free last year are alive. Two of them are blooming. Not much, but it's a start. The two bloomers are both white, 'Bridal Veil.'

We'll end with two hostas. This is 'Tiny Tears' again. They are just making me happy with how profusely they bloomed this year.

And this is one of my small unknown hosta. One flower stalk, but I'll take it.

I will leave at about 11 am tomorrow, so I think the only other thing that might bloom is another lemon lily. But I'm sure there will be other gardens to share while I'm on my adventure. When I get home, the rock garden will need another complete weed-through. I hope some of the new sedums that are getting buds now will also still be blooming when I get back. THe sedum flowers do tend to last well, so I think so.

Almost, almost done with How to Hike the North Country Trail. I should be able to finish the details while on the road with no big issues. It has to go to be printed by July 15.

Got the Sampler Patches for NCTA designed and ordered. Got a few more Long Distance Hiker awards sent out (these take forever to process, so I'm still behind), and I picked up another editing job.

Just a few more tasks to finish before I leave.

See Yellow and Maroon

The Unrelenting Genetic Drive to Reproduce

 I'm starting this post with a picture from another year because it's prettier.



These are globe thistles. It's not really a thistle, The genus is Echinops (which means spiny). The leaves look prickly, and the ball-like flower heads look spiny, but all those parts feel soft when you touch them.

Anyway, I used to have a whole row of these in my flower garden when the house was down by the road. They were here when we bought the property in 1971. Despite complete neglect they have refused to die, although they are getting pretty crowded out by grass. Alive is a good thing because I really love them. Here's what the flower heads look like in full bloom.



They aren't blooming yet, but they are in bud. I want to move some of these up to the driveway flower bed that I have been cleaning out. You know that transplanting a plant while it's in bud is the very worst time, right? But there are still quite a few plants, and I decided to move the smallest and see if it would survive. If it even lived, then next year it would blossom.

I moved one plant on June 12. Here's what it looked like on June 17. I was pretty sure by then that it was going to live. Even though it's very droopy, some of the leaves perked up every day, so I knew they were drawing water up from the roots. The recovery never quite made it all the way up the stem, but I watered it heavily at least twice every day.

Here it is today. The lowest leaves have yellowed and wilted, and it still looks droopy, but can you see the real difference?

I'll help you out. Even though the upper stem can't recover to be completely vertical, look at what the bud is doing. It's turned upwards to the light and is getting larger. If a plant can be said to have desires, those are to find light and produce seeds. That means to create a flower. Despite some really tough odds, this plant is going to live and reproduce. It is putting all its energy into that flower head. Forget the leaves, just get water and nutrients to the top! Unrelenting.

Today was much better, weatherwise. We had 0.6" rain this morning, which cooled things down. It got a bit steamy this afternoon, but never made it to the really high temperatures. It was too wet to do any real gardening.

I edited. Gotta keep at it.

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Rounding Out the Evening

 
Today was the first really hot day we've had in a while. I'm enjoying our cool summer immensely, and having it over 80 now didn't feel very good. So I laid low and waited for evening. I just came in from a little walk after the day started to cool down. Thought I'd find some things to picture for the blog.

The very first thing I found of interest was this bull thistle, getting ready to bloom. You can just barely see some of the purple petals breaking out of a bud in the right rear. I'd never noticed before that the buds are, at one point, quite round. They become more pear-shaped as they get ready to open.



And thus was born the theme of my quest- round. I did find some round things. I've showed you all the others previously, but they are still pretty. Next up is the seed head of goatsbeard. Looks like a really big, and fluffier dandelion.



The berries of tatarian honeysuckle are luscious looking, but taste bitter, and might give you a tummy ache if you actually succeeded in eating enough of them. Honeysuckle fruits are little Siamese twins- always two stuck together.



Finally, I went to my flower garden and snapped a globe thistle. It's not a real thistle. It's one of my favorite plants. Partly because it agrees to grow in my lousy soil, partly because I love the color!



It wasn't till I saved the pictures that I realized I had a bud, a flower, a fruit, and a seedhead. It's like the game of SET, you can count it because everything is round, or you could count it because everything is different.

Actually, this is a good place to rant about one of my pet peeves with some kinds of test questions. My favorite example (I really saw this question) is a picture of four balls: A soccer ball, a basketball, a baseball, and a football. The question was: "Which one is different?"

I suppose the "right" answer is the football because it is not round. However. However...

It could be the basketball because it's the only one you play the game inside. It could be the baseball because it's smaller. It could be the soccer ball because it's the only one you can't touch with your hands. The question is unanswerable. I am told I overthink things. Maybe. But answering those kinds of questions for me involves thinking of the possible answers and then figuring out what the question writer wants.

So, of these pictures, which one is different, eh? The goatsbeard, because it is not a color? The berries, because they are not a flower? The globe thistle, because it is the most perfect globe? The bull thistle because it has prickles?

OK, I'll stop now.

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Spikey Things

 
Just an interesting set of things with the same texture from my walk with Maggie today. The field was wet (hooray- it rained most of the morning!), so we walked down through the cemetery.

We have brown and blue.





I'm sure you can guess the first one. It's a tree stump.



The second is one of the few garden flowers that's looking decent in my yard this year. It's called a Globe Thistle. I love the balls. They only look sharp- when you touch them, they are soft.

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