butterfly weed and ant trap

You know it's summer when there's an ant trap sitting on the windowsill with your butterfly weed! Believe it or not, the photo is lying about one thing, though. This is a yellow-flowering butterfly weed, not an orange one. See second photo for its real color. Crazy how much the camera/light in the first photo changed the color.

little red poppies in test tube vase

I think this vase was made to hold these delicate little poppies. They bloom along roadsides (and esp. railroad embankments), but I've also got some growing here and there in the garden, where I've scattered their seeds. So tiny, so cheerful, so poppy!

crossvine

I need to redo this, because the flower that really interests me here is the crossvine (orange tubular flower), and it got upstaged by a yellow nasturtium in this arrangement! I'm loving the crossvine on a trellis outside (second photo) but there's absolutely nowhere on the vine where I could pick more than a floret without damaging the vine, hence the one floret with no stem. (There are also some comfrey and forget-me-not flowers in this).
P.S. Crossvine looks a lot like trumpet vine, but it blooms earlier and is a more subtle color. Both are native.

P.S. Crossvine looks a lot like trumpet vine, but it blooms earlier and is a more subtle color.

edible stuff (calendulas, mustard, parsley), with stick

Pulled these flowers and greens off plates where I'd used them for garnish today, then added a little snippet of Harry Lauder's Walking Stick that I'd picked up from the floor when cleaning up after last weekend's workshop. Love having the warm-colored calendulas at this time of year. I'm growing them in the vegetable garden, where they look so very cheery.

shoe decoration

I was pulling this leaf off my shoe (it had stuck to the shoe as I walked across the yard in the rain) when I realized what a sweet leaf it was. And how pretty it was against the dark background of my shoe. Decided to make it (shoe and all) today's windowsill arrangement.

tulip poplar flowers

Tulip poplar flowers on the ground (probably snipped off the treetops by squirrels). Brought some inside to show them off on the windowsill this morning.

first dahlia (with copperhead)

This, believe it or not, is a dahlia flower that is blooming in the garden on a plant I grew from seed THIS SPRING! Started the seeds inside in February, planted the thrifty little plants out in early April, and lo and behold, one of them is already blooming! (Also in the vase are some American wisteria flowers, hydrangea leaves, and fern fronds).

That should be the end of my dahlia story, but it's not. Yesterday, I was pointing out these new dahlia plants, plus some coming back from established roots, to my daughter, when I spotted a copperhead under one of them. Yikes! A neighbor came over and killed the copperhead, but I was spooked the rest of the afternoon and joked that I wasn't ever going outside again. Ha! I've been outside all morning, but you'd better believe I'm looking hard where I put my hands and feet.