Weeding on the Wild Side

Saturday, September 12, 2015

New Plants, Fall Roses September 12, 2015

Today I am linking with-

Skywatch Friday hosted by Yogi, Sandy, and Sylvia

Floral Friday Fotos hosted by Nick V.

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Maria

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

In a Vase in Monday hosted by Cathy

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day hosted by Carol, see what's blooming around the world!

Tonight's flaming sunset-

I visited Tsugawa Nursery yesterday while my husband paddled his Hobie Bic pedal-powered sailboard at Horseshoe Lake. Tsugawa's was having a 1/2 price sale on perennials, so I picked up a few- Eryngium zabelii 'Big Blue', which will have steely blue spiky flowers next spring, if it makes it through the winter-

Geranium 'Orkney Cherry', a vigorous plant with little bronzy leaves, covered with little pink flowers-

Limonium latifolium 'Blue Diamond' (Statice), which will be covered with a mist of tiny flowers-

Sanguisorba offincinale 'Chocolate Tip', which has delightful little balls of flowers, and has very dense short foliage with chocolate edges, outdoing all my other Burnets-

My grandkids met us to pedal the boat-

Some Mallards happened by-

And went for a swim-

Nom nom-

And for In a Vase on Monday, and What's Blooming Now, this week I have my small wonderfully fragrant late-blooming Clotilde Soupert, a variegated red and white striped mini rose, and a small white rose with blush edges, here with fall-blooming heather Daboecia cantabrica 'Atropurpurea'-

Here on velvet-

From the white mini side-

Other flowers are blooming in my garden. In spite of the drought and increased heat, certain garden troupers continue to bloom, such as the wonderful hardy geranium, Rozanne.

The Japanese Anemones are doing their late-summer to fall blooming-

Antique Polyantha rose Marie Pavie, another late bloomer-

My Goldenrods are starting to bloom, Solidago shortii 'Solar Cascade', which is slowly spreading by rhizomes-

Also still blooming are a few more roses, like the fabulous Betty Boop-

In my container garden, a favorite combination is tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, and Browallia americana-

Also blooming are some Coreopsis, Ageratum,

Gaillardia, Dianthus, Ursinia, fall Sedums, Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow', and Scabiosa.

Promise of some other fruits yet to come, hardy Arguta Kiwis Annasanaja, they soften up very late in October. Inside they look and taste like the fuzzy kiwis but you don't have to peel them-

What is blooming and fruiting in your garden? Hannah

I had a comment about problems with leaving a comment here. If you are having trouble commenting on my blog, you can send me an email at z8hannah8z@gmail.com to comment and let me know of your difficulties. Thanks! I looked up solutions on Blogger and apparently Wordpress has not updated their Open ID servers, so to comment on Blogspot blogs, you must select OpenID then enter your address, changing it to plain http://address instead of https://address.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Heirloom beans Anticipating Fall September 4, 2015

Today I am linking with-

Good Fences hosted by Theresa

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Maria

Floral Friday Fotos hosted by Nick V.

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

I Heart Macro hosted by Laura

In a Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy

The weather cooled down markedly here and we have had some rain. A feeling of the approach of fall is in the air. One daily activity is picking beans and checking for brown pods, since once the bean pod loses its waxy green waterproof covering it can mold in the rain. My Bean Fence-

Here are some of my heirloom beans, they were handed down by farming families in the E USA for more than 100 years, or by Native American tribes, and perpetuated by enthusiasts. These are regular beans, Phaseolus vulgaris, a few heirloom varieties are Grandma Robert's Purple Pole, Tennessee Cutshort, Zelma Zesta, and Yer Fasulyasi-

And here are some picked when the pods are still green but the beans are fat, known as "Shellies" which cook fast not having been dried-

The pink and purple ones are runner beans, Phaseolus coccineus. They can be perennial in tropical climates, or come back from the roots in spring in some warmer zones. They differ from regular beans in needing insect pollination, and they leave the seed leaves in the ground when they sprout. The beans shown have red flowers as well, which hummingbirds love. Runner beans have been developed for many varieties in England, but not many are available in the USA. I obtained some heirloom ones, named Insuk's Wang Kong, from a Gardenweb friend, beans from Korea named after his wife. They excel in ability to set beans in hot weather. I also have some English varieties that make much longer beans. The pods can get rather fibrous unless picked before the beans have fattened, or I leave them to fatten and make shellies, or let the pods dry and and they make wonderful very large meaty soup beans. There are also several white-seeded (and flowered) varieties that seem a little milder in soup, once you have tasted them you may become addicted, rather like large fat Lima beans I ate in the South USA.

Another current harvesting chore is Aronia berries. Aronia is a dream to harvest, the berries all ripen at the same time, and hang from a single stem easily snapped off, so much easier than blueberries, where ripe berries must be picked carefully so the green ones are not disturbed. While blueberries are touted as a healthy berry, they have an ORAC value (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity), derived from the oxidative properties of their pigments, of 4633 units, here. But Aronia has the highest value of any native North American fruit, (listed as Chokecherries in that website) 15,820 units, and while seemingly lower than Acai on some charts, raw fruit is being compared with powdered (concentrated) Acai. There are numerous websites about the extensive health benefits of Aronia. They are super easy to grow, and bushes range from dwarf to tall. Mine are Viking, 9' / 3m tall. I have to protect them from the deer with a welded wire fence, and try to pick them in fall before the birds come and strip the branches.

Aronia berries-

The double Gaillardias are still blooming, though the plants are small and weak-

Another Alstroemeria from the fair-

My entry for In a Vase on Monday this week uses another of the pinched vases I made during my pottery phase, from slab, and the seam is decorated with a piecrust ripple. For flowers I used the irrepressible Betty Boop rose, which usually blooms continually, and a sprig of tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica. To go with the hot colors I used foliage with mostly yellow variegation- bamboo Sasa Masa, Sasa masamuneana albostriata; Zebra grass, Miscanthus sinensis 'Zebrinus'; Variegated Jasmine, Jasminum officinale 'Aureovariegatum'; Elaeagnus x ebbingei 'Gilt Edge'; and Vinca major 'Wojo's Gem'.

Close-up of the flowers-

Edges-

Back of vase, with flowers rotated to back-

and decked up in a pendant made from a Mt. St. Helens glass ball fragment-

Pendant made from broken piece of Mt St. Helen's ash glass ball, I smoothed the edges and used a stained glass technique called copper foiling.

Critter of the week is this moth, perhaps Noctua pronuba, the Large Yellow Underwing, whose caterpillar would feed on various wild and cultivated plants and could be a pest caterpillar.

Being a gardener, my way of celebrating fall is heavily involved in harvesting vegetables and fruits. Rain and cold weather also give me a break from gardening and I can get involved in sewing projects, perhaps this year I will even try some quilting I have been putting off. What do you do to celebrate Fall? -Hannah

Friday, August 28, 2015

Wildflower Wednesday, In a Vase on Monday, August 28,2015

Welcome to my last post of August, summer is swiftly approaching an end. Fires are still burning in parts of Washington, hopefully they will be out soon. The weather seems to be cooling some. Today I am linking with-

Wildflower Wednesday hosted by Gail

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Maria

Skywatch Friday hosted by Yogi, Sandy, and Sylvia

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

I Heart Macro hosted by Laura

In A Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy

Strange Visitors in the Garden hosted by NC Sue

Some Golden Sunset

My arrangement this week for In a Vase on Monday, hosted by Cathy of Rambling in the Garden, is a small one in a rippled top glass vase. It features a late-blooming OGR (Old Garden Rose) that has fantastic fragrance and lots of petals, polyantha Clotilde Soupert. The 1.5" / 3.7cm blooms open nicely in dry weather, like now, but tend to ball in wet weather. Red rose is either Francis Dubreuil or Eugene de Beauharnais, another OGR. To go with the red rose, I added Berberis thunbergii 'Rosy Glow", and a favorite annual for containers, Browallia americana.

And now some Alstroemerias from the Fair, I think they are so pretty but didn't succeed with them the one time I tried to grow one.

The little Woodland Skippers, Ochlodes sylvanoides, have returned to the garden, they have not seemed quite as friendly this year but I did get close to one, they are not large and colorful but I like their large eyes and hooked antennae, and the way they hold their wings like a fighter plane-

My wildflower of the month is Vernonia fasciculata, reliably blooming again in very dry conditions, where some of my other wildflowers have not. It stands 4' / 1.3m above the ground, a nice spot of long-lasting color.

Gaillardias have also impressed me with their blooming their first year, I started them in the fall last year. I do want to find some that would bloom lower to the ground.

What wildflowers are blooming for you? Hannah

Monday, August 24, 2015

In a Vase on Monday, August 24, 2015

It's Monday again, time for In a Vase on Monday, hosted by Cathy of Rambling in a Garden. Despite the drought and the terrible fires in my state, Washington, there are flowers.

My flowers are OGR rose Monsieur Tillier, Coreopsis lanceolata, Chaste tree flower, Champney's Pink Cluster rose, Lonicera nitida branches, and Elaeagnus ebbingei silverberry leaves with the silver undersides mostly showing. The vase is one I made in my former pottery days, slab, I liked to do the pinched sides for a rather organic form.

I haven't been into cutting flowers much because they last longer on the bush, but I decided they are memorialzied in the photos, and can be enjoyed in the off season as well.

What flowers appeal to you today in a vase?

Hannah

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