In this interval, we hauled the hay, stacked the wood, stowed the cushions from the outdoor furniture. We transported the flowerpots that spent the summer adorning the decks around the house down the hill to the greenhouse. If the plants survive the travails of overwintering, they’ll take the ride uphill again in spring; otherwise they’ll…
Revolting. If you had asked me when I was a kid what I thought of tomatoes, that’s probably the word I would have offered—or “gross” maybe, or “disgusting” when I was a little older. Actually, you probably wouldn’t have had to ask. If a tomato, or slice or dice thereof, was anywhere in my vicinity,…
If you’ve been following this series of blog posts featuring the wildflowers blooming in our part of Colorado this July, you may have noticed a relative dearth of the classic and recognizable form commonly referred to as sunflowers. The local sunflower types tend to come out later in the summer; at our altitude, many are…
Thirty days ago, I was inspired to blog the bloom by a prolific little flower I called “the little purple penstemon that blooms earlier than most of the penstemons” (kindly identified as P. virens by Susan J. Tweit in the comments to that post). Those plants have now gone to seed, but their larger penstemon compatriots…
Not all of our wildflowers insist on living “wild.” Pioneer plants are the first to colonize disturbed ground, including construction sites and burn areas. They help recover disturbed soil by stabilizing against erosion and shading tender seedlings. What makes them pioneers rather than weeds is their willingness to share space: rather than simply taking over…
Friends, the month of July is running out of days faster than I am running out of flowers to post. Here, then, is a sampling of the flowers from the Astragulus genus. By sharing them as a group, I’m able to show you more of the floral abundance and variety, whilst avoiding any pretense of…
The conventional definition of a weed is a plant s growing where it’s not wanted. By that subjective measure, any of the twenty-six wildflowers featured on this blog over the past few weeks might qualify as a weed if it’s in the “wrong” spot. More often, I suspect, we think of weeds as non-native or…
This flower-a-day project has encouraged me to look closer at familiar blooms, but I’ve also found new ones, which has been great fun. I knew this plant, but not its flower. The foliage grows in mats of tightly clustered rosettes, the plump leaves so tiny the plant resembles moss–and, in fact, I’ve thought of it…
Charming little plants when in flower: like candles in the grass, with crayon-yellow flames. Orthocarpus luteus
To my considerable relief, the nod of the Nodding Onion is distinctive, and I can assert with some confidence that this is Allium cernuum. And since I have not yet had occasion to use the word “umbel”–and who wouldn’t want to use the word?–I will add this note: an umbel is a form in which…