Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I try to make sure that I always have something blooming in my garden. I have a bunch of flowers that are just starting to pick up steam. As you can see the few echinacea I planted a few years back have successfully taken over this corner of my garden. Of course, it was my plan all long. There are a few other plants seen here, well weeds really that I thought looked good, so I let them grow. I'm a pretty easy going gardener. I have read in a few garden books that letting some weeds grow actually can help your garden since beneficials may use them in their life cycle. Plus, some garden pests actually prefer the weeds. I don't know about these weeds though. They were just pretty.
This is a decendant from some gaillardia that I started from seed about seven years ago. I have never seen gaillardia with this color pattern so I have marked the flower heads and I'm going to collect the seeds to see if I can get them to come out like this again. If they come out true, I might try to market them. I love this color combo. I was thinking about calling them Bahama Mamas after that yummy drink! What do you think? Would you buy them? I'm not stuck on that name, although I could use one of those drinks right now! Mmmm...
Here is a shot of my black-eyed susans that have finally decided to bloom. They are late. Everyone else around here have had their's blooming for over two weeks now! I like this combo with the gayfeather. I have another rudbeckia that is more the color of mac-n-cheese (which by the way is one of my favorite colors) but the pictures turned out sort of fuzzy. Oh what the hell, I'll post them anyway.

11 comments:

OldRoses said...

I envy you your echinacea. The petals on mine were all shredded by Japanese beetles so the flowers don't look very attractive.

Sandy said...

I love these pictures! Very nice gardens.

Diana LaMarre said...

Your coneflowers are just beautiful, Sylvana. I can't get mine to form nice big clumps like that. My black-eyed Susans are just beginning to bloom, too.

Sylvana said...

I just want to disclaimer that the coneflower is one of our natural wildflowers around here (the variety I have here though I bought, can't remember the name either) so I am in prime growing conditions for them.

OldRoses, I don't have too many problems with bug, except one that like to strip the leaves on all my columbine!

Sandy, thank you very much. I needed that. I've been frustrated with my garden lately.

Zoey, do birds eat all the seeds? Most of these were from seeding out. I like to leave the heads in place because they look nice through the winter. The birds will eat a lot of the seeds, but enough are usually left over to come up the next year.

crazygramma said...

I love your photos I think I am going to let the Black eye susan take over the whole back corner of my yard back the fence since they don't need lots of care, also I will mix some coneflowers in there for constrast. Stand by for next season. LOL

Sylvana said...

Crazygramma, I like the idea of letting low maintenance plants take over large swaths of my garden also. Flowers look fantastic in large groups and those would be huge chunks of my garden that I wouldn't have to worry about.

I can't wait until next year!

Anonymous said...

I have purple coneflowers growing with liatris, too.

Check beneath your columbine leaves in the evening. Every one of mine that had chewing on it had at least one teeny-tiny green worm under it (almost invisible). I started removing the damaged leaves and worms (larvae?) and the columbines are looking healthier. But I can't do it now because the mosquitoes are out again. Grrr!

Anonymous said...

Addendum: I think I read that the green worms were sawfly larvae.

Sylvana said...

Hey, thanks Sabine! I remember seeing little green worms before.

jac said...

What is that flower at the background of your second pic in purple colour. I haven't seen that around here.

Sylvana said...

It is liatris (also called "gayfeather" and "blazing star"). It is native to the US.