It finally feels like July Forth. After a gloomy, rainy weekend with barely a ray of sunshine, it sounds like a civil war has broken out two streets over. Ahhh, the sweet sound of American patriotism and excess. I’ll catch the festivities next year under clearer skies. This is the display I enjoyed today.
Plumbago
Lantana
Mowing your lawn is completely overrated this time of year.
Why would you want to miss out on the Zephyranthes? A.K.A. Rain lilies, some bulbs produce seed pods instead of flowers. As the pod opens, the paper-thin seeds fly everywhere from the garden beds to the grass.
I’ve spent hours digging and corralling them to certain areas - what a waste of time! You’ll never get them to stay put, and I don’t know why I ever bothered. Now instead of grabbing the shovel, I grab my camera and enjoy the surprise.
I didn’t think I’d ever find a V in the garden. I was working on something more abstract for this week’s ABC Wednesday post when I passed the sweet potato Vine, then the bleeding heart Vine…
…then my favorite Vine, Confederate Jasmine.
When blooming in Spring, the jasmine is covered in tiny white flowers, but the smell is by far its best feature. It’s a neighborhood favorite, Valued for its hardiness and drought-resistance. The only other scent that can possibly compare wafts from a giant orchid tree on the corner.
My sunrise plant is in bloom.
Also known as Anacampseros telephiastrum variegata, the common name must be derrived from its hot pink hues because it doesn’t start blooming until the afternoon.
I’m partial to the plant’s hot pink colored rosettes; I once had an apartment that color.
umbel: A racemose inflorescence typical of the carrot family in which the pedicels arise from about the same point to form a flat or rounded flower cluster.
Now to define a couple of the non-U words…Racemose comes from the Latin word racemosus, meaning full of clusters. Inflorescence is “the mode of development and arrangement of flowers on the axis,” and a pedicel is “a slender basal part of an organism or one of its parts. Thank you Merriam-Webster!
If I Understand correctly, my lantana is an Umbel:
Normally, my Rain lilies make a much grander entrance. Three days after the first good summer storm they start springing up by the dozen. This year they can’t seem to wait for a storm. One by one, they’re popping up in random places throughout the garden…
Amongst the Mums…
Under a Croton…
In a clump of Salvia…
As I walked through the garden looking for R’s, everything Red caught my Retinas…
Red salvia Ruling the wildflower garden:
grape tomatoes Ripening:
Ripe and Ridged surinam cherries:
an epiphyte Residing in a Red lantern:
Recent growth on my blue girl Rose
and a gnome Reading in a Red hat:
Happy ABC Wednesday!
They’re hovering by the dozen and one literally bounced off my forehead this afternoon, so apparently it’s dragonfly season again! Although it’s not quite sweltering yet, it’s hot enough for them.
This one is a blue dasher dragonfly.
Another sure sign of summer are Rain lilies, quite possibly the most heat-tolerant bulb on Earth. I never dig them up, and they multiply like crazy. This one popped up in a barren square.
There are no Q’s in my garden; it’s time to get queative! No Queen Anne’s Lace, no quinces, no quails, and no quarenders (dark red apples). But surely I can find some quatrefoils…
Quatrefoils have four leaves or petals. Happy ABC Wednesday!
I made a yummy yogurt-granola parfait this morning with bananas and blueberries. On my way to toss the banana peel into the compost bin, I stopped short in the rose garden. One, because the roses are blooming and budding like crazy:
And two, because the roses could use that banana peel more than the compost. Bananas are good for roses for the same reason they’re good for people - their high potassium content. Potassium is a common ingredient in fertilizers because it encourages hefty bloom and fruit production. There are several ways to feed your roses bananas, but you know me, I always pick the easiest. I simply shove my fingers into the soil a few inches from the base of the rose and then shove the banana peel down. Cover it up, water it in, and done. But that’s me. Other people will tell you to bake the banana peels so they’ll break down faster or to use the whole banana and make it into a mash. This seems like extra work, but that’s coming from a Floridian. The Florida sun is hotter and more effective than any oven on Earth. The heat literally melts everything we bury. We have our bin, but that’s more for yard waste. Most of our kitchen scraps go underground. We use one square at a time and no matter how much we bury, we never dig anything up. It’s as unbelievable as a magician making his assistant disappear. I want to know where the trap door is.
This rose’s name is Strike it Rich; it’s a Grandiflora rose and the star of the garden - extremely disease-resistant.
