The afternoon showers have been coming regularly. I live in a very moist place. You can detect the true deep purple nature of the Black Iris in this picture. It changes with the light.
The roadside vegetable garden has had a rough start this year. I planted the first week of May because it was warm verging on hot and fit my schedule perfectly. Then it got cold. Down to 36 cold with plenty cool mixed in.
When the warm returned, a family of turkeys with a huge brood of chicks came in and scratched the peck out of the whole garden. Dung makes plenty worms.
The next day some damn digging varmint examined the roots of a tomato and pepper plant.
Seeding things is always a problem. Slugs, snails and rolly pollies love them some fresh sprouts. I have found the best solution is a light fertilizer application. The salt like qualities of fertilizer pellets is hard on slime and crustacean bodies. I neglected to do that. My seeding of things has had poor results.
Last year's unharvested parsnips are blooming beautifully.
I may have bought a couple more Indian Pink, Spigelia marilandica, because more is good and the ones I have sure are growing slow. The nursery bought ones are way ahead of the already in ground ones. You can see one that has been here for about three years right behind this one.
Three of the Hesperaloe parviflora are ever so slowly sending up a bloom spike. If these live, thrive and grow to full size they could be quite the addition to the gardens. I am concerned it is blooming more as a death wish. Cold, wet and voles have tested their desert nature. The verdict is still out on them.
The Rodgersia is in bloom. You have to love big bold foliage for shady conditions that also has a showy flower.
This is the native Spikenard, Aralia racemosa. I relocated these from a friend's place in Hot Springs. It is another big foliage plant.
It's Asian cousin is Aralia cordata 'Sun King'. The grasshoppers and slugs have really enjoyed these as they were emerging. I'm lucky to have this much of a plant left. They are alleged to get very large. The first one I put in too much shade several years ago. It is not large. The new ones are in more sun.
It comes up like an asparagus spear on steroids. Smilax herbacea, Smooth Carrion Flower, is an herbaceous and thornless smilax vine. The round balls of flowers stink.
It would grow five feet high and fall over because it had nothing to affix its tendrils to and would get lost in the Lush. Now it has the Dragonfly Bomber to rest upon. The better to be seen and sniffed.
Last fall I was handed a box of bulbs and told to plant them somewhere. Where wasn't specified. I was told they were cold hardy crinums.
I know there are some long time, reliably blooming crinums a block away from where I has handed this box of bulbs. I was still skeptical they would be hardy. So I planted them somewhere ... in two places. A couple of bulbs rolled out of the box and followed me home for a high elevation cold hardy experiment.
The smaller bulbs I stuck in the Great Lawn came up. The bigger bulb was a no show. I figured the voles had a fine Christmas dinner.
At work today a Louisiana Iris leapt right out of a stream and landed in my truck. Part of it went to Twin Falls pond and part of it came home. I went to plant it where the big crinum bulb had gone missing by the rotten iris log. Three inches over, there it was just now emerging. The big crinum bulb is still here.
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3 comments:
There is nothing more exciting than finding something you thought was gone! Everything looks lovely. My Black Gamecocks, new to me, are about to bloom also.
Fun how these things work. I have never heard of your stinky vine.
Me either.
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