Daily Archives: July 8, 2011

Diggin the Dirt on Flowers

Fellow revelers, help me out with the following question that was posed:

What types of flowers are the readers out there growing? I’ve almost ignored flowers since I started my renewed interest in the garden. I have a few calendulas (pot marigolds) growing in a small pot, and a handful of neglected bulbs in the ground along one fence which keep coming back year after year. Any ideas on some nice flowers to grow?

As for me, in the front yard I have my famous day lilies from Wisconsin alternating with the hostas (which bloom every year now that they’ve matured – this is one of the things that I very much love about hostas, which can otherwise seem kinda bland).  Again behind the front row of flowers/hostas, I have some white small flowers whose name I cannot remember.  I want to say nasturtium but I know that’s not it (anyone who can take a peek at my photo here, and help me out, please do).  The native plant garden is just behind that, with a black-eyed susan that’s now giving me plenty of blooms.  I love having this in my yard.  It reminds me of the Replacements song, I Saw Susan Dancing in the Rain.  I think next year I may grow daisies just b/c of Prince’s song that has the line in it: I’m blinded by the daisies in your yard…

Onto the steps, where I have zinnias, three pots for each of three of my favorite people.  In the backyard I have begonias, and upstairs petunias so I can sing the song, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch…and all I do is cry .. boohoo boohoo.”

A few days ago I bought some bulbs at Home Depot because they were 75% off, and they looked pretty.  Hard to resist.  I’m planning on keeping them for next spring, though I’m not sure how well they keep (I’m assuming there will be no problem with them but have no experience to go on here).  They’re gladiolas and dutch irises (LOVE the smell of these).  A friend, many moons back, gave me crocus bulbs but it was in my pre-garden days and I never did get them in the ground.  I may get some next year; these would be inspired by the Joni Mitchell song about having crocuses to bring to school tomorrow…

QUESTION: Has anyone else’s garden been inspired by a song? Any recommendations for any particular flowers?  I used to keep marigolds around some of my vegetable plants but haven’t needed them this year.

1 Comment

Mystery Mushroom Poopy Plant Alien Invading Ruthless Abductor

So this is what I saw upon opening my eyes after several days of nothing.  I was in the yard, inspecting the mysterious beast that had been the object of my obsession since I first saw it, when the next thing I knew, I was passing out.  I fell to the ground, and all the rest is black.  I can’t remember it.  I don’t know what happened, or where I was.  All I remember is wearing an ill-fitting wig, swimming through some post-apocalyptic swampy water, briefly visiting the Vatican only to be quietly shooed away from the gates, then finally landing in an interview with a very severe suit-bound woman.  I couldn’t put the words right to satisfy her questions and the next thing I knew, here I was lying on the ground, face to … uh, face with my weird little plant.  It was whispering something to me when with a “poof” it suddenly disappeared.  Now you know, I’ve been doing daily posts since I started this blog almost two months ago.  My recent lapse (by a day?  two??) had nothing to do with my mother’s visit, or her insistence of cleaning my house and my following her cleaning up after her, putting things back from where she moved them, or any of that stuff.  (She left this morning, shortly after I came to in the back yard).  You all do know, don’t you, that it would take nothing short of being abducted by random, wild, scary mystery mushrooms to make me miss a day of checking in with you.  Heeeeeyyy, wait a minute.  It’s all starting to come back to me …
 

QUESTION: please send pics of a plant you want to ID.  This one remains a mystery.  Potent, though.

1 Comment