October 2011
35 posts
3 tags
Aconite
Aconite has cool names, like wolf’s bane.
Aconite has a cool flower when you see it in the flower catalog, but aconite is disappointing to grow, blooming late in the season (now) sending up tall unbranched bloom stalks that tend to fall over due to the weight.
It’s still an interesting plant, which deserves it’s place in the haunted garden.
Happy Halloween.
1 tag
Dog Fennel
Dog fennel is a tall bulky weed, an indicator of poor soil, but it does actually taste like fennel and I’ve eaten small amounts of it in salads.
Pollinator
2 tags
snow on the green leaves →
My heart goes out to everybody in the northeast. Terrible weather, I’m ready for Spring, Do we have to go through winter?
1 tag
Look-alikes
Blackeyed susans (rudbeckia sp.) still blooming!
Dune sunflower (Helianthus debilis) also still blooming.
2 tags
Yellow Daisy Mums
2 tags
Winter Garden
Green Leafies!
Nom nom, collards!
3 tags
Stoloniferous Sunflowers
I’m having a bit of a time discovering a name for these.
I’ve found websites that call these “swamp sunflowers” and they clearly are not. The center ‘eye’ is much lighter, and there’s those stolons…
I’m kinda leaning toward Helianthus giganteus… but, no mention of stolons.
Searching stoloniferous sunflowers yields helianthus...
3 tags
White Snake-root
Ageratina altissima
An attractive if poisonous native wildflower.
2 tags
Mexican sunflower
small due to the prolonged drought. Tithonia is a self-sowing annual here in zone 8.
2 tags
Food day →
Everybody eats.
Anybody have plans?
Here in Macon Ga, there are 3 events scheduled. I plant to watch the film…
3 tags
White buttons
I really like these, but I can’t seem to find an id.
I found an id after posting repeatedly on sites that have threads dedicated to naming your plant. ‘Summer’s farewell’ (Dalea pinnata).
3 tags
1 tag
Garden Gold
Every gardener needs a source of this stuff.
Do you know the definition of optimist?
A little girl that finds a big pile of poop, and gets excited, obviously there’s a horse here, someplace!
2 tags
Blue Curls
Trichostema dichotomum
Blue curls needs someone to do some work on increasing the size of the flowers. These are pretty, but difficult to photograph.
A self-sowing annual that never becomes weedy.
3 tags
Swamp Sunflower
Helianthus angustifolius
There’s a lot less of these alongside the roads than there used to be just a few years ago.
There is a lot of unnecessary mowing going on, laying waste to the pretty wildflowers, leaving us with unexciting turf to look at… Our tax dollars at work…
4 tags
What?
3 tags
Salvia azurea
The bloom color on this salvia is so pretty, I wish it was easier to grow.
2 tags
Moonflower
Ipomoea alba There are several flowers called “moonflower”, is why it’s important to include the botanical name along with the common name, so that fellow gardeners know specifically which plant is under discussion.
This moonflower is in the morning glory family, but unlike the rest of the family, it opens at dusk… a great flower for the evening garden, along with...
4 tags
Hardy Cyclamen
Closely related to florists cyclamen, this one grows in the shade garden.
They say to plant the bulbs, and then never disturb hardy cyclamen. I had lot’s of babies come up everywhere in one of my gardens, in my other gardens babies are as rare as hen’s teeth.
1 tag
Showy rattlebox
Crotalaria spectabilis a very pretty self-sowing annual
In researching the crotalarias, I came across sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea), which seems to be the next big thing for getting sandy soils to produce. Clover dies in my garden, the sand is too dry… maybe this crotalaria will help.
1 tag
Wild morning glory and pokeweed berries
pretty, but not necessarily a good thing in the garden.
2 tags
Collinsonia anisata
I found this item growing in the woods a coupla years ago, and it looked interesting enough to move from the woodland to the garden.
Apparently also goes by the name southren horsebalm
close-up of the bloom.
After google searching this collinsia, I smelled the flowers, and yup… smell like anise.
4 tags
Switch grass
Panicum virgatum covered in dew.
Looks like a big spider web, or like a patch of frost or something… this native grass is pretty and I permit large swaths to grow in the vegetable garden.
Here’s a pic of switch grass sans dew.
3 tags
Hawk moth and salvia
Caught at first light, visiting the salvia microphylla.
Another tersa, this guy uses buttonweed as a host plant when he’s a hornworm, tomato worm looking caterpillar.
I caught one of these as a caterpillar last summer, and while he eventually crawled down off the plant into the sand, to make a cocoon, he never made the transtition into a moth.
1 tag
Toad lilies
1 tag
Centrosema virginianum
Wrapped around a goldenrod, in my yard.
These r kewl wildflowers…
3 tags
Torenia
While a common offering at the bedding plant display, torenia made the transition to being a self-sowing annual, without over-running the flower bed the way that impatiens seem to.
1 tag
The Brugs r bloomin agin!
Give a little rain, and get these huge blooms!
Didn’t get much height this year due to the lengthy drought, but there’s been blooms anyway.
5 tags
Cottony goldenaster
Chrysopsis Chrysopsis gossypina or cottony goldenaster blooming in spite of the dry sand, desert conditions.
3 tags
Ageratum
This is the perennial native that blooms in the Autumn.
The pastel blue is a show stopper.
This plant is a spreader, and can take over if we’re not vigilant.
3 tags
Pepperz
Lookit the Vienna sausage plant…
I know there’s a weenie in here…
2 tags
Wild Buckwheat
Buckwheat cakes will make you fat, or a little fatter, but wild buckwheat will cover everything in the garden. This stuff is as aggressive as morning glories and bindweed.
2 tags
Helenium amarum
I had a big patch of this in the sand hill garden that I pulled when it spread too fast, stolons made it unsuitable to the garden. I was surprised that I eradicated it, I have a couple of patches of wood sunflower (in the same garden) that I’ve been pulling for a number of years, and it keeps returning…
4 tags
Budz
Monarda punctata again… I posted a single bloom here.
4 tags
Agalinis purpurea
Agalinis Is a very pretty native flower with a lot to recommend it for any meadow garden.
Unfortunately, it looks like a weed for most of the year, and may get exterminated from a meadow garden that’s over manicured.
Host plant to the buckeye butterfly, I’ve attempted re-introduction to those gardens where it had been eradicated… Without success, it doesn’t transplant,...
