Saturday, July 8, 2023

More Blooming Things


As promised, here's a look at what's going on in our garden now. We've moved on to mid-summer flowers, with more yellows and reds, and there's still a lot happening out there.

Above, a bee checking out the blossoms on our Senecio, or dusty miller, which I bought in Nunhead the day I finished the Green Chain walk. It's grown a lot since then!


Here's another bee, sheltering inside a geranium blossom on a recent rainy day.


And here's yet another bee, eagerly investigating one of the "Bishop's Children" dahlias.



Here's another type of dahlia, the first flower on our red variety. We have one more that hasn't yet bloomed, a yellow one, but it has buds so we should see flowers soon.


Our Crocosmia "Lucifer" has burst into flower...


...as has the Gaillardia, or blanket flower, I bought from Homebase a couple of weeks ago. It was a battered little plant on the discount shelf but it has grown into a nice, healthy specimen.


We have daylilies! Our daylilies didn't bloom at all last year, so I'm glad to get some flowers this year, even though they're doubles (or triples?) and I much prefer the single varieties. (They were here when we moved in -- we didn't plant them.) I've been trying to keep the surrounding foliage trimmed away so they get some sun, and it's nice to have that work rewarded.


And finally, we have a native-variety hogweed plant (not the scary giant kind) that has produced big, white discs of tiny flowers. There are almost always insects on them -- flies or beetles. I really like this plant, which has beautiful leaves, and I'm glad we let it grow. It first appeared next to the patio a couple of years ago but this is the first year it's been big enough to flower. I think it came from seeds I brought from Hampstead Heath.

So yeah, lots of activity!

Note: For those of you into copy editing, let me just say what a nightmare this post was! Genus names of plants are normally capitalized and italicized, which I tried to do here. But you'll notice I'm not consistent -- I didn't capitalize or italicize geraniums and dahlias, for example. My theory is that those are also the common names by which those plants are known so they can be more casually referenced. I went back and forth about how to handle this for about an hour and I know I do it differently every time I blog! As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

21 comments:

  1. I've given up with correctly writing botanic names. I don't care anymore. The first plant I would call a daisy. You certainly have a lot of interesting blooms in your garden.

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  2. I love the word umbelliferous which amongst others describes plants in the hogweed/cow parsley family. Do you think that might be cow pasley in your last picture?

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  3. I've given up correctly presenting the Latin names. If they're right, I don't care who says they're supposed to be italicized, capitalized or capsized, the reader's lucky to get them!

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  4. "little minds"-not important at all. Who even notices? Are we being graded? Nope.
    So pleased to see bees living in your flowers and living well. There is a paucity of bee-ness here, not sure why.

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  5. I love bees. I appreciate bees. A stinging bee could kill me. I had to breeze right by those pics. Gorgeous flowers after the first three. I was an editor in a former life but decided to no longer stress about proper style when blogging. And that’s why my writing is all over the map!

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  6. Of the literally hundreds of Crocosmias in my yard, I believe I have two blooms. Two.
    They are not of the Lucifer variety but they should be. Demon plants.
    I know a woman who lives near by who posted on FB about how much she loved her Crocosmia. She had just transplanted some. I commented that they were invasive and to watch out. She answered, "Oh, but they're so easy to pull up!"
    Hahahahahahahahahaha!
    She will learn.
    Now I am sure that your English variety are so much more civilized.
    How heartening to see all of your bees.

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  7. Your flower pictures are the main attraction here, not the spelling or font style! Most blog posts drive me up the wall with style and punctuation or lack thereof! Yours does not! 👍

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  8. I'm just happy if I can spell the words correctly in my comments! I don't think I can change the font in comments so I just leave as is...If it wasn't for your background in Journalism, you wouldn't care about it either!?! :)
    Great flowers!

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  9. If not for your flower photos and names, I would have forgotten what's growing in my yard in any language! Love seeing your flower garden.

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  10. The symmetry of that dahlia blossom is just wonderful. Happy sigh.

    I'm rereading The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune & there is a six year old boy named Lucifer (the actual antichrist), and given Ms. Moon's description of the variety in her yard I'll say: same. Ha!

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  11. The variety of colors is gorgeous!
    And thanks for all you do for the bees because without them ...

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  12. You've spent quite a bit of time to find all you blossoms and give us a photo.

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  13. What a spectacular group of flowers. Your garden is buzzing with activity....and color!

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  14. It's your blog and you can do it any way you want to! I love seeing all the bees. While I find bumblebees a lot more fun in general, it's the honeybees I'm always happy to see at work.

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  15. Lovely garden. I am impressed with the variety you have. We have some bees, they're on the hydrangeas, but that's about it for them.

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  16. These are splendid! And so different to the flowers I see here in Honolulu. Aloha to you friend. Nice to meet you through this meme

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  17. You're such a good gardener to even TRY for the "official" names. They are just as beautiful no matter what you call them. What a glorious color palette.

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  18. I simply love looking at the beautiful flowers and the photos! Thanks for sharing them.

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  19. Do you keep all those names in your head? If so, my hat is off to you! Beautiful photos of beautiful blooms. I especially like the red dahlia.

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  20. Andrew: "Daisy" is kind of a go-to term for any round flower with a wheel of petals, isn't it?

    YP: Cow paisley? What's that? :) No, it's definitely hogweed. I've elaborated in my subsequent post.

    Boud: Capsized! LOL

    Linda Sue: I think we've seen fewer bees and butterflies this year as well, but it may just be my propensity for doom.

    Mitchell: I've always struggled with questions of style. Some editors are really good at it but that's not where my strengths lie. (Which is why I'm not a copy editor.)

    Ms Moon: There are lots and lots of varieties of Crocosmia, so maybe she has a different type? We have a few others besides the Lucifer but they're far less impressive. Yours might bloom more if they had more direct sun -- just a guess. But anyway, there's nothing wrong with hating them and pulling them up! (Except for the work involved.)

    Marcia: Well, thank you. As a former writer and editor I want to be as close to perfect as I can! But as Linda Sue said, we're not being graded!

    Ellen D: It's definitely my background in journalism that creates my desire to be "correct" in questions of style. Even though I'm probably often not!

    Robin: I think it's so funny how we share so many blossoms in common!

    Bug: Ha! Yeah, I wonder why that Crocosmia variety is called "Lucifer"? I always assumed it's because of the red color, but maybe it also takes over?!

    Bob: We do try to keep bee- and butterfly-friendly plants around. But as I told Linda Sue I think we've seen fewer of them this year.

    Red: I'm constantly wandering around the garden taking pictures. The neighbors probably think I'm insane.

    Sharon: It's not as buzzing as I'd like. I think I've seen more bees in past years, but I could be wrong. It's hard to tell.

    Kelly: We tend to see more bumblebees and "fuzzy" type bees. Not sure why. Maybe there are no honeybee hives near us?

    Allison: Thank you! We do try to plant things that bees will like.

    Cloudia: Aloha! I looked at your blog and yes, you have some splendid tropical flowers there! I'm from Florida originally so some of them were familiar to me, too.

    Jeanie: I like learning the Latin names, at least at the genus level. It helps me remember what's related to what.

    Margaret: You're welcome! Yeah, I realize most people don't care too much about italics and capitalization. :)

    Jenny-O: Well, for some plants. I couldn't tell you the genus name for everything. (Or the species name for anything!)

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