May 31, 2012 -- butterfly snapdragons

I absolutely adore the color of these snapdragons. They are Butterfly snaps, which I grew from seed (Renee's Seeds). Not only are they more open and old-fashioned-looking than "regular" snaps, but they are the most beautiful range of colors: lucious pale lemon yellows, apricot, and peachy-pink.

I was enjoying them in the garden until a huge thunderstorm came and toppled them. A day later they had started reaching for the sun again (from the prone position), giving them strangely curved stems. I decided to cut them and bring them in the house, so the plants would, hopefully, send up a new round of blooms. 

First I put the cut snaps in vases under a light over the kitchen table, where I thought they might straighten up a bit (reaching for the light). If they did, I couldn't see it, but I did see how gorgeous their color was with pink grapefruit!

Then an orange bag landed on the kitchen table and I decided to use it as a windowsill vase (I lined it with a rectangular glassware container). Here's the result. It doesn't showcase the snaps' colors the way I'd like it to, but the fact that the snaps are oriented all sorts of weird ways isn't a problem when using them like this. The blue flower I've combined them with is an annual ageratum called Blue Horizon.



May 30, 2012 -- clover and buttercups

I'm near a stable, waiting for my granddaughter to finish her riding lesson. Love the sights, smells, and horses, of course, but what I couldn't resist were the windowsills! Asked my granddaughter where we might find some wildflowers, and she led me to a field full of grazed-over clover and buttercups. The buttercups had such short stems I didn't recognize them at first. Anyway, here's what Eliza picked. .

May 29, 2012 -- feverfew, ten days late

When I agreed to do a wedding on May 19 and the bride said she loved tiny daisies, I thought I'd  have the flower to thrill her. Surely feverfew would be blooming on May 19, but, no,  it bloomed about a week later. Now I'm awash in feverfew, when I would have given a king's ransome for it 10 days ago.  I bought some Montbretia to subsitute, but it was so stiff and floristy-looking I didn't even use it.

This is the single-flowered feverfew (which Flower Camper Jan Barthurst gave me a few years ago and I've continued to grow from seed.).  It's single-flowered, with a yellow center, unlike the more common double-flowered feverfew. I like this one much better. They both smell like chrysanthemums, and I'm surrounded by that scent right now, because it's still on my fingers.  

May 28, 2012 -- little red poppies

It was totally unintentional that I chose tiny red poppies to display on the windowsill today, but I realize now they are appropriate for Memorial Day.  I'll copy the Flanders Fields info from Wikipedia below, so you can see why. These particular little red poppies grow along the railroad tracks near Howardsville, and it was from there that I first harvested their seeds. Now they pop up, but not in great numbers, all over the garden.  They are really delicate, and, as you may be able to see, one dropped its petals the minute I put it in the vase.

"In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially unsatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.

It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war. As a result of its immediate popularity, parts of the poem were used in propaganda efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict. The poem and poppy are prominent Remembrance Day symbols throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly in Canada, where "In Flanders Fields" is one of the nation's best known literary works.

May 27, 2012 -- poppy pods and more cactus blooms

This is a combination of blue-green poppy pods, a white Korean bellflower, and a couple of  blue-green hosta leaves. The poppy pods and bellflower don't really work very well together, because the poppy pods are stiff and upright,  the bellflowers graceful and droopy.

I'm not sure I didn't like the poppy pods better before I "arranged" them--when they were just sitting alone in a  plastic pitcher.

And here's an update on the cactus I put on the windowsill yesterday (with no vase, no water). The bloom I photographed yesterday  died overnight but two new flowers bloomed today. The prickly pear cactus is one indestructable plant. It's actually native to Virginia, and I used to like it (especially where it blooms in rock crevaces outside Columbia, Virginia), but now I can't get rid of it. And it's nearly impossible to handle. I used heavy gloves to bring this one inside, and my hands are still smarting from prickles that reached my hands anyway. 

May 26, 2012 -- challenging day

My experience of today was buggy, muggy, and challenging. I gardened at Flower Camp all day and had some fun but also had to battle some mean weeds. Decided the best symbol of this day was this Prickly Pear cactus, which is sitting in the windowsill with no vase, no water.

May 25, 2012 -- wildflowers, weeds, grasses

This is just a handfull of material I collected as I walked this morning. It's mostly roadside grasses combined with coltsfoot (yellow), cinqufoil (pale yellow),  pink clover, pink and white sweet peas, daisy fleabane,  honeysuckle, and wild onions.  There's also a single stem of Queen Anne's lace in here, but only one stem. Queen Anne's lace, I discovered,  is really hard to cut with your fingernails!