Lowly Weeds

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This year folks will dose their lawns with gallons of broadleaf herbicides in their vain attempt to eliminate certain flowers they consider weeds. Personally I’m in awe of how these plants can continue to survive in the midst of the onslaught of chemical warfare.

I’ll never have the pristine solid carpet of green that one sees on advertisements, but I can do get the opportunity to look closely at these “weeds”.

Dandelion the king of lawn weeds, time to make some wine

 

I see a number of both white and purple violets in my lawn. Time for a flower salad

 

First Crocus of 2016

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I can tell that spring is just around the corner. Maple sap is dripping on my driveway, the chickadees are singing a different tune and I saw a few crocus in bloom.

Purple Crocus

 

Yellow Crocus

 

Blooming Clivia

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Yellow Clivia

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While I was volunteering at the Green Center my friend Norma brought me a yellow clivia. I’m a big fan of these plants although they are susceptiple to mealy bugs. I need to be diligent about swabbing them with alcohol on a q-tip.

Just a few days ago the plant flowered.A nice treat for late winter.

Yellow Clivia

 

Yellow Clivia

 

Yellow Clivia

 

Yellow Clivia

 

Floral Reflections

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When my Sony projection television died, I figured it would have some interesting optics including a high quality first surface mirror.  The mirror was large enough to accommodate a large sunflower blossom. This gave me a way to capture a view of the sky. In the last photo I was able to get a worm’s eye view of a sunflower.

 

 

 

Floral Friday – Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy)

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It’s Floral Friday and I’m featuring a common roadside weed that has some interesting properties. The leaves has a pungent medicinal fragrance when crushed, I was intrigued to learn that it was used to place in coffins as a type of embalming as well as a number of medicinal uses.

These flowers were found growing along the roadside on Taylor Road in New Ipswich, NH.

Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy)

Tanacetum vulgare (tansy)

Alstroemeria and Daylily

When we lived in Connecticut, my sister planted these yellow daylilies. This variety had much heavier and thicker blossoms than many other varieties. It has been many years and they continue to put on a spectacular display each July (this photo was taken in 2014). She has forgotten the variety, so I’ll just call them “Pat’s Pick”.

The other flower is a Alstroemeria  (Peruvian Lily) that I purchased from Mason Hollow Nursery . I was a bit nervous about it’s winter hardiness but it is progressing nicely this May and I expect some nice bloom from June to Frost.

I gave up on lilies after watching my Oriental Lilies being destroyed by lily beetles. The Alstroemeria is unaffected and doesn’t seem to have any pests.

Alstroemeria and Daylily by John Poltrack on 500px