The floral fuzziness of these Salvia blooms are different from all the other Salvia varieties in our backyard, which makes these a little extra special. I’m not sure if the hummingbirds (and hummingbird moths, should we be so lucky) prefer this sort of fuzz or not – people are divided over fur so I imagine animals might be as well. Personally, I love the fuzzy outer coat on exhibit here – life is about texture and sensual delights. Try some, feel one…
A striking shade for a Rose of Sharon plant to have, this lavender-hued beauty is in bloom in downtown Albany a couple of blocks from my office building, so I get to visit it on lunch when it’s not 100 degrees outside. It’s a happy visage for a lazy Sunday night in summer, so I’m sharing it with you now. Enjoy.
Filipendula rubra is a robust and towering plant, reaching heights up to eight feet in conditions it likes (wet feet and sun) – and is topped by fluffy plumes of pink flowers at this time of the year, earning it the nickname ‘Queen of the Prairie’. While the effect is grand from a distance, it’s even more enchanting when viewed up close, which is the main point of this post.
I’ve had a mixed history with this plant in the garden, and it’s my own fault as a plant will only do what a plant can do in its situation. This hasn’t been situated or cultivated in the way it deserves, so when it does come into bloom I’m grateful and guilty at once.
Do I have the time or space to set it up properly this season? Likely not, so enjoy these blooms while they’re here.
Macro beauty from a Queen.
Water collects in the cup of a purple bloom.
The leaves beneath the flower hold water too.
Despite the excessive temps, there is something cooling about these tableaux, the way the sound of running water seems to cool the atmosphere.
Anything to alleviate the heat of the day.
Summer and the stultifying warmth conspire to pause all in their path, and I’m happy to stop if it means some relief.
Like the yolk of an egg, the central whorls of this daisy ring out in bright, cheerful yellow – a reflection of the summer sun from the ground below. These daisies have been in the garden for several years, coming back pretty robustly with some regular watering and feeding. This first flush of flowers is the biggest and best of the entire season, though they will sporadically throw out additional blooms in a smaller, secondary blooming.
Shadowed by a large seven sons’ flower tree, the flowers in this light always look dramatic in this small section of the garden near the pool.
Daisies are favorites of a couple of my friends – JoAnn and Suzie especially – so I’ll usually send them a few photos if they’re not here to see them in person. This is one way flowers bring people together.
This is summer in full bloom.
The oregano got away from me this year, bolting a bit too quickly into flower before I had a chance to pounce it back. Not as disastrous as if I’d let the basil follow-suit, but less than ideal when we want foliage over flowers. Attempting to turn lemons into lemonade, I hastily harvested the flower heads as soon as I realized what was happening and turned them into an elegant centerpiece for a summer dinner.
They make for a more refined appearance and tidier filler than that awful baby’s breath that florists still seem to use (who in hell wants the breath of baby anywhere near a beautiful bouquet?) This happy accident made for a bouquet unto itself, which is how summer should be – easy and elegant and simple.
For a dinner table display, there is enough interest in the whorls of each individual bud to entice a closer inspection, so when all else fails you have one more thing to discuss. My guests are always infinitely more interesting than having to resort to such tactics but for those of you seeking out topics, go for the oregano bloom.
Our post is about this purple petunia, so get your mind out of the cum-gutter.
Petunias are a classic, if overly-used, annual that provides boffo floral bang for their bucks. I’ve come to appreciate such a powerhouse bloomer, though when I tried accenting our garden with a few of them lats year, they were devoured by a rabbit or groundhog before they ever got going. When they do manage to survive such attacks, they will sometimes manage to reseed themselves the next year, though never in a place nearby. Such mysteries are what makes gardening to fascinating to me. One never knows what’s going to pop up, or where or when. It’s good to have the unexpected to keep you on your toes.
As for this beautiful variety, I love the way the shades of the petals change, and all the intricate veining. Nature is wonderfully astounding when you take in her infinite variety – and I don’t mind if it’s the work of hybridizers. A little nudge never hurt anyone, unless they were standing on the edge of a cliff or something, and these petunias were nowhere near cliffside. This has been a remarkably dumb post, and I’m attributing it to the heat. Summer makes fools of us all.
One of the very first garden plants I obsessively coveted was this evening primrose, which is blanketed in beautiful yellow flowers this time of the year. They have a short blooming period, but it’s a blockbuster show while it lasts. Such a bright and cheery color is welcome no matter how brief its stay might be. How you can you be mad at the world when little drops of sunshine peer up at you from the ground?
While they used to simply be one of the flowers that signified the arrival of summer, they’ve come to embody this song about ‘the place with the yellow flowers’. Summer shifts and changes, evolving and transforming as time marches onward. We need gentle reminders of what stays the same, and what becomes something new.
What canna guy do? Other than make embarrassingly-bad puns and Dad jokes? In this case, we have a play on the Canna plant, whose beauty is nothing to joke about as evidenced in these fiery pics. For some reason, I rarely grow any Cannas, which is strange because they are pretty easy, and you get impressive tropical-looking blooms that set any scene aflame. Mostly I appreciate them from afar, such as when they are planted by cities in public spaces.
This season, however, I plopped one into a group pot and it’s already in bloom. Maybe it sensed we needed some cheer. Maybe it jumped the gun and wanted to steal the early glory for itself. Maybe it’s just a plant and doesn’t care either way. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s here, and I’m loving its vibrant color.
It’s a decent personification of the fire this week’s temperatures are set to bring. Burn, baby, burn.
The hosta blooms rose early this year, in the weird way that nature has of delaying some plants, while accelerating others. I’ve noticed the seven sons’ flower tree already shooting out its buds, which shouldn’t bloom until August if we’re on the usual trajectory. This hosta bloom is backed by the brilliant chartreuse of the Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’ – the lilac color looking splendid against the bright green of earliest summer (though this King will hang onto its gorgeous bright green for the entire season).
Enough of my written nonsense, take a look for yourself.
This pair of magenta blooms is currently lighting up the garden – the first is a brilliant rose campion – small of stature and size, its color is so potent it shows itself from any distance, piercing through the green surroundings with its clarion-call. The second is a smaller monarda – bee balm – that was a bit of a lark when I planted it a couple of years ago, and it’s come back again. I like a survivor. And I love this color.
Despite having been obsessed with houseplants since I was a wee lad, I’ve never gotten into Hoyas. They seem to inspire a fervid passion in certain plant collectors and enthusiasts, but they’ve largely avoided my interest. I’ve never been a huge fan of the trailing houseplant – the trellises they enjoy too often read as clutter in my annoying Virgo’s mind. Lately, however, I’ve been charmed by the Hoya’s winning attributes – their flowers and pretty leaves, the way some of their nectar is sweet, how some of their perfume is intoxicating. The wide variety of cultivars and forms are also infinitely interesting. Coming into a new interest and passion well past the halfway mark of life is a reminder of how much excitement there is yet to be had in new discoveries.
A few weeks ago I procured my very first Hoya – the Hoya pubicalyx. It’s a very little plant at the moment, the better to acclimate and raise it from the very beginning. In certain houseplant folklore, the Hoya is considered to be a symbol of everlasting affection, love, and protection of home. All good things in this treacherous world.
Way back when I was planning this website over two decades ago, blogs were relatively new. I had grandiose and impossibly-ridiculous ideas of how I wanted ALANILAGAN.com to appear, none of which was possible. First, I wanted ambient music in the background and shifting light schemes. Second, I wanted fragrance, pumped out of everyone’s computer to complement whatever the current blog post was. Third, I wanted smoke (well, just some water vapor) to accompany the fragrance. I was going for an entire sensory experience. After discussions with my first webmaster, none of those wishes would come to be granted (or even possible) so I compromised and took up the challenge of writing the atmosphere I wanted to convey.
Since that time, many advances have been made on the website front, but I still can’t emit fragrance or smoke from your lap top or phones. That means this blog post on jasmine blooms must be a thing of description, a thread of words to wind its way into your mind versus your nose. A sweet classic white floral, jasmine’s perfume is tempered by a freshness, an element of green that keeps it from becoming too cloying, too sweet. It’s difficult to capture that outside of the natural scent, so I’m not a big fan of perfumes that proclaim to be jasmine – only the real deal will do. And maybe that’s something I should have realized from the beginning – there is just no approximating certain fragrances, and my initial attempt to do so was probably best left unfulfilled.
Behold one of the most enchantingly-monikered flowers out there – the forget-me-not. Little clouds of sky-blue blooms drift at ground level, lending a magical aspect to their blooming season. The forget-me-not likes to re-seed – the ones seen here were found along an informal path in Maine, well outside the bounds of any formal garden scheme. They’ve naturalized a little patch there, and flourished without any apparent care or cultivation. I love a hardy soul that happens to be pretty too.
Folklore and fables have it that the name came about from some suitor who was wooing a woman. Upon picking a bouquet of these flowers he lost his footing and fell into a nearby river, crying out ‘Forget me not!’ as he was carried down to his death. Straight people are so dumb.
Surely there’s a better tale to be told about this exquisite little flower.
If not, let’s make one up.
A new romance. A new history. A new tale to tell the world.
Something not to be forgotten…
Someone once complained that there are too many flower posts here.
Which means that someone is reading this blog when I’m not reading theirs.
(I don’t even know if they have one.)
Ever since they said that, I post even more flower posts because it was a reminder to do what I want to do here – posts filled with whatever brings me joy mostly – instead of what snarky visitors want me to do. Apologies to those who deserve them.
Here’s yet another flower post because it’s May, and things are beautifully blooming, and I just want to share the prettiness and the joy with the world. It contains a number of favorites:
