Echinacea!!!

 

I finally found some Echinacea!!! So beautiful! And they smell so good! They are perennials so hopefully they will survive the winter and grow giant in my daisy garden next summer. I bought seeds in the spring but nothing came up so it might take them longer to germinate. These are called "Cheyenne Spirit."



 

 

I was so excited I also bought another perennial - Rudbeckia, which is a type of sunflower but also similar to Echinacea. These are called "Tiger Eye".

I've been working on this daisy garden all year but unable to find the plants I need. Next year it should be spectacular.

 

I LOVE CHEERFUL FLOWERS!

I Love My Garden!!

My garden this year is so bright and cheerful. I've had so much fun.

The yellow roses are magnificent.

The red roses make me miss Peter. He loved to eat them.

 

Clematis

Zinnias

Lettuce ready to eat!

 

 

Sunflower babies!

Sunflowers!

I love sunflowers. I'm sure I've expressed that enough. Although this year's batch didn't produce the giant mammoth sunflowers like last year, they are still beautiful. These in the front yard are about ten feet tall. Most of them are the Lemon Queen variety so their heads are smaller and they are more brown and orange in color.  Bees really like Lemon Queens and people who study and count bees use this variety to attract them. Peter loves to eat them. Well, the flowers, not the bees!

The last photo is the view from my bedroom and the one above it from my living room window. I love how they sway in the breeze when they are so tall. It's like they are nodding their heads in approval at me.

One of my most delicious sensual memories of all time was riding my bike in France on a little country road through a dark forest. It opened up to a blinding brightness of sun and fields of sunflowers as far as the eye could see with their heads all facing me. To this day I wish I would have taken a photo, but I was so shocked and mesmerized I forgot! Now it's like remembering a fairy tale. Did I really experience that or dream it?

I love sunflowers. Such happy flowers.

The Master Gardener

September is here and summer is over. The gardens are starting to die back except for the sunflowers, asters and tomatoes which are currently blooming and ripening.

 

 

Lemon Queen Sunflowers are eight feet tall!

 

I have four different colors of asters.
The bees LOVE them.

 

 

First step of fall clean-up is to open all the gates, remove the chicken wire and let Peter, The Master Gardener, do his thing.

Yesterday he re-discovered the sun garden. Although the daisies, poppies and most of the nasturtiums have died, he joyously hopped around re-familiarizing himself with the layout and sampling the delicious variety. It was so fun watching him creating trails in and out by snipping off the vines and stems that were in his way. As a precaution, I placed wire mesh around the sunflowers and tomatoes. Not that he would eat the tomatoes, but if the vines block his planned path, he will cut them with his teeth and haul them aside. What a happy boy he was! His first bit of business (pun intended), he ate the rogue clover. Good boy! Then he started on the dandelions! Awesome! 

 

 

I left him last night lounging near the center of the garden and found him the next morning still in the garden! I don't think he went to bed!

The Decapitation of Nancy

Nancy is the biggest sunflower and the first to start sagging due to the weight of her seeds.

 

 

 

The rains and winds didn't help either.

 

 

 

Poor Nancy!

 

 

 

So I decapitated her.

My gardening books say to wait until the backs start turning yellow then brown, but I tried that last year. The rains soaked the flowers so thoroughly they never dried out completely and I lost a lot of seeds to mold and rot. This time I decapitated before the torrents of rain.

You can see the seeds here.

Nancy, along with some of her once-cheerful friends, is now drying on the clothes rack over the heater vent. I don't know if this will work, if the seeds should mature on the plant, but it's better than water rot. We'll see!

 

 

 

Gardening is a very violent preoccupation!

Happy Flowers!

Gardening season is winding down. The weather is still nice, partly sunny and crisp, holding on to the very last days of summertime. Plants are starting to die back. The Roma tomatoes are finally ripening:

As well as the pumpkins and squash, in time for Halloween:

The rainy season is supposed to begin this Friday and the clouds are starting to move in. Once it starts it'll continue until next July! Still, my gigantic sunflowers brighten up the yard even without sun. Each one seems to have a personality of its own. I want to name them! With sunflowers all around, I don't think I'll miss the sun so much. I want to share their happy faces, especially for Evelyn who is fighting viruses.

Samantha (front) and Selena

Antoinette

Nancy

Evelyn

Virginia

 

Beatrice Maude, Bonnie Matilda, Brunhilda May
Bertha Mildred and Bonita Myrtle

 

 

Lisa and Janine

 

Persephone

 

Rebecca (front) and Rachel

 

Cassandra

 

 

What is this plant? It's an herb. I know it is because I stole the cutting from the herb garden of the local naturopathic school. Unfortunately, I didn't write the name down. Anyone know? I might have paid more attention had I known how beautiful it would look when it blooms!

Sunflowers!

My sunflowers are ten feet tall.

Rabbit manure is awesome.

I was having such a difficult time keeping the slugs from eating the starts, I planted some in this large, black pot. Unfortunately, too often it would get too hot and dry out the dirt. Several times I would come home to find the stalks nearly dead, drooping down to the ground. I was surprised each time they'd bounce back.

Now they look like strange aliens with their curved stalks crawling and reaching out of the pot.

 

In the backyard, TEN FEET HIGH!