Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
I was walking around up on the hill yesterday when I noticed the roses starting to bloom. It’s amazing that they are even starting to flower with all the rain we have been having. Actually, I think the rain kind of stopped. It’s just cloudy now and really not all that bad. It’s good walking weather.
I figured that I would give you a few flower shots, since I haven’t in a while.
There are three colored roses up there…pinkish white, white and red. I took a few pictures of the red roses, but they didn’t come out at all. They were all blurry. For some reason, my camera doesn’t like really bright colored flowers. It’s like there’s not enough contrast or something.
Anyway, here are those photos of what I think are Knockout Roses.
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Pinkish white Knockout Rose with red roses in background
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Pinkish white Knockout Rose with small rose buds
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White Knockout Rose with small white rosebuds
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
So apparently the Peonies are in bloom right about now. We have some very colorful pink ones over in the front/side garden. They really are some thick and substantial flowers.
Just wait until you see these pictures. The larger (more bloomed) flowers are so pink that the camera couldn’t get the color right. They almost look neon.
Okay, the purpose of this post is to show you the steps of a Peonies blooming. Strangely enough, we have a whole bunch of Peonies blooming right now and I was able to get five photos…one during each step of the bloom. It’s really neat. It’s like I took a picture every few days of the same flower. Check it out…
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Closed Peonies bud with ants on it
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Peonies bud opening slightly
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Peonies flower about half-way opened
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Peonies flower almost bloomed all the way
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Fully bloomed Peonies
That last picture of the fully bloomed Peonies looks a little weird. I have a feeling we’ll be getting some better looking flower very soon.
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Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Okay, let’s go. I have some photos of the most recent flowers that have bloomed ’round these here parts. They are pretty good shots. Make sure you click and then click again on the pink Rose picture. You can see a nice looking insect and spider web on it. It’s pretty cool.
In this batch, I have the Iris (some variation of the Bearded Iris, I think), the Hardy Geranium, Perennial Flax Flower (I think…or something close) and a few others that I can’t identify.
We’ve been playing nicely here. I post the pictures and you guys either correct me or simply identify the flowers that I don’t know. Let’s not stop now.
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Purple and yellow Bearded Iris (variation) #1
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Purple and yellow Bearded Iris (variation) #2
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Pink Rose
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Yellow and brown Bearded Iris (variation)
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Perennial Flax flower, Linum perenne
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Hardy geranium, cranesbill, Geranium, Tiny Monster
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White Columbine. Smaller inner petals, larger outer petals
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Purple and blue Columbine. Smaller blue and purple inner petals, larger purple outer petals
UPDATE: Once again, my trusted readers have come through. The two last flowers are Columbine variations. Thank you.
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Thursday, May 28th, 2009
I have a few more photos of flowers for you. I have three identified, but am having some difficulty with the fourth.
I just found a website that helped me identify the Mountain Bluet. I already knew what the Bailey’s Gold was, along with the Rose. The last one is a little troubling. I have actually never seen this flower before. I am going to write a description of it below the photo in hopes that someone with know what it is and leave a comment.
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Mountain Bluet, Centaurea montana
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Bailey’s Gold, Sedum floriferum, Weihenstephaner Gold – Photo 1
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Bailey’s Gold, Sedum floriferum, Weihenstephaner Gold – Photo 2
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Red Knockout Rose
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Dianthus barbatus – Pink flower with white specks and spiky green leaves
As you can tell, it’s that last one I am having trouble with. I wrote down that it has pink flowers with white specks and spiky green leaves. It’s a pretty cool flower. I just wish I knew what it was.
UPDATE – I have learned that the last flower is a Dianthus barbatus. Thank you.
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Thursday, May 28th, 2009
As many of you already know, I have a little trouble with flower identification. Actually, my next post has a few flower photos in it.
I wanted to tell you that I found a pretty good website that has a bunch of flower pictures. I found one of the flowers I was trying to identify and another one that someone else identified for me. If you are looking to figure out what type of flower you have growing in your garden, give this site a try.
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Sunday, May 24th, 2009
This is becoming a little tradition for me. Every year, I take some nice photos of the first Bearded Iris to bloom.
This purple and white beauty bloomed yesterday. A few more came to life today and I expect the rest will start showing their colors tomorrow. When the entire row is bloomed, I’ll take some pictures for you.
The bearded Iris is, by far, my favorite flower. The flower stems are like small trees. They are tall and strong. Although the flower itself has a short life, it’s really good looking. The best part of all is that the Bearded Iris multiplies, so you can pretty much expand your garden as far as you would like throughout the years. I have these flowers growing all over the place here.
I took a few pictures of this bearded Iris today. I tried to get a regular shot, one from the top and another close up so you can see the pollen. Lastly, I got a photo of another plant’s bud.
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Purple and white Bearded Iris
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Purple and white Bearded Iris viewed from above
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Up close picture of a Bearded Iris yellow pistil and pollen
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Purple Bearded Iris unbloomed bud
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Thursday, May 21st, 2009
On Saturday, while driving around Glastonbury with my parents, we accidentally came across a local farm. We love these local farms because we never know what we are going to find in them. Since we were with my parents, I decided to pull in. I thought they would get a kick out of it.
As we started walking around, I got the strange sense that I was going to have to soon pull out my wallet. It’s funny…the same thing always happens. I think we are just going to take a nice stroll through these places, but later on find myself loading up the back of the car with all different types of plants.
This time wasn’t too bad. We bought a few packets of seeds; Cucumber, Squash, Beans and Zucchini. We bought anything that can be planted in late Spring. I really wanted the Peas, but the lady told me that Peas like cool weather and that I was too late to plant this year. Yesterday, I planted what we bought in some 5-gallon buckets on the back porch.
The seeds were exciting, but the real champ of the day was our award winning Everbearing Strawberry Plants. We bought this huge hanging planter with three Everbearing Strawberry Plants planted in it. We currently have the whole thing hanging on the back porch.
From what I read about Strawberry plants, it’s good to plant three near each other. That way, they can get sufficiently pollinated.
You have to see this thing; it’s huge. There are so many flowers and Strawberries that are beginning to grow. While purchasing this plant, I asked if it was a perennial. The lady told me that it was an annual, but that it’s everbearing, meaning that it produces fruit the entire season. I found that appealing, since we really like Strawberries.
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Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Yes, it’s about that time of year, folks. It’s when the majority of Daffodil flowers die off in the Northeast. I’m not sure of anywhere else, because I don’t live anywhere else. Here, I simply look out the front door.
So, what to do when Daffodil flowers die? Well, it’s time to prune (or deadhead) the flower. I am going to do my best here, because I just did a little research on the topic. There was something I needed to look up that I’ll reference later in this post.
Now, I am only talking about deadheading the dead Daffodil flower here, I am not talking about cutting down the entire plant. Here, I’ll show you some pics.
As you can see from the above photos, dead Daffodil flowers look pretty nasty. Even if all the advice on the internet told me not to prune these things, over here, they would get pruned. I am just not going to look at that kind of thing. As for the Daffodil plant itself, I would say they don’t look all that bad. It’s a nice looking, green bushy plant. I’ll keep them around until they start to droop.
That brings me to another topic. When do I prune down the entire Daffodil plant? Well, from what I have been reading, you are supposed to leave the entire Daffodil plant standing until it dies off naturally. It’s important for the plant leaves to soak up the sun’s rays to energize the bulbs for next year. That’s what I have been reading anyway. From personal experience, you could probably run these flowers over with the lawnmower every year for the next 20 and never get rid of them. I learned a long time ago that people just love to copy each other when giving advice on the internet without any personal experience.
So this is pretty interesting – As I was pruning off the dead heads of the Daffodils, I noticed a sack, seed pod or ovary right at the base of the dead flower. I split one of these seed pods open and noticed a bunch of tiny white seeds (as seen in the photo above). After I saw this, I said, “Hmmm. What the heck are these things?” Since I had no idea, I looked it up. Here is what I found.
Daffodils multiply in two ways: asexual cloning (bulb division) where exact copies of the flower will result, and sexually (from seed) where new, different flowers will result.
Seeds develop in the seed pod (ovary), the swelling just behind the flower petals. Most often, after bloom the seed pod swells but it is empty of seed. Occasionally, wind or insects can pollinate the flower during bloom by bringing new pollen from another flower. When this happens, the seed pod will contain one or a few seeds.
Daffodil hybridizers pollinate flowers by brushing pollen from one flower onto the stigma of another. Then the resulting seed pod can contain up to 25 seeds. Each of these will produce an entirely new plant – but the wait for a bloom for a plant grown from seed is about 5 years! Source
I though that was fascinating, so I decided to sprinkle those pruned Daffodil flower heads around where I wouldn’t mind seeing more Daffodils in the future. Hey, who knows if they will just rot or if they will actually turn into a plant someday.
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Thursday, May 7th, 2009
This is just another one of my documentation posts. I thought it would be nice to show the status of flowers budding as well as the grass and how far the leaves on the trees have come.
One thing to note is that we primarily have Oak trees on this road. I have been doing a lot of driving around and have noticed that everywhere else seemingly has more leaves on their trees. It looks pretty much like Summer there. Then, I get back here and it looks like early Spring. Oak trees bloom late, that’s all there is to it.
The grass is coming along nicely. It’s very green and the bald patches are filling in. I already mowed it twice. There is one thing I would like to mention…I have been using the rear bagger when I mow the lawn. I have read all over the place that it’s good to spray the grass clippings back onto the lawn. It probably is, but with my experience, and especially when the existing grass (and crabgrass) is seeding, it’s better to catch the clippings. I don’t want to spread crabgrass seeds back on the lawn. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of what I am trying to do here. I told a friend the other day, “Just take a look at what the good lawn services do and copy that.” Seems logical enough.
Here are some photos from a cloudy, muggy Spring day.
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Pink / purple Lilac budding up close
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Bloomed Red Dicentra – Bleeding Heart
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Bloomed Crab Apple flowers
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Blooming white Lilac
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Status of Oak tree leaves in early May
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Green grass in early May – Front lawn
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Green grass in early May – Side lawn – Weeping Cherry in background
Yesterday, I received my notification call from Scotts Lawn service out of Hartford. They said they will be here within two business days. I gave a quick call back just to see what they will be doing. They told me that they will be spraying the lawn for weeds and putting down fertilizer / crabgrass pre-emergent. Sounds like just what we need.
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