Greg's Flower Garden

7/30/12

daisies

    
     Since there is not much gardening going on in my yard, I will share some photos of my son's flower garden.  These were taken in June, a month or so after we moved here.  He lives nearby, so he gardens in zone 7a.

sunflower and echinacea

balloon flower

nicotiana

coleus and snapdragons



gardenia bush

     Greg has had this gardenia bush for several years.  He pots it up every winter and takes it indoors.  This is not the full extent of his garden.  He has many other flowers including liatris, pentas, lavender and several other herbs.  And we regularly enjoy the abundance from his vegetable garden.  A week ago we enjoyed a side dish of tomatoes, cucumbers. and watermelon.

Garden Memories

7/23/12

part of my desert garden

     For the past few days a depressive mood has settled upon me in part because of the cloudy, rainy, cool weather.  On Saturday, our high temperature was 68 F, the lowest high temperature for that date ever!  But I also miss my huge flower gardens I had in the past.  When I moved to the desert, I missed my former Virginia garden.  Now that I have moved back to Virginia, I am missing my desert garden.







zinnia


     I think when gardeners invest energy and time to create and design gardens using color, height, fragrance and shape, we want to hang onto them for the delight they bring us.

vinca

     Since we are renting, I can't dig up swaths of grass and put in gardens.  Even if I could, I wouldn"t want to put in the effort and money for gardens, only to leave them behind in a few months. 











celosia


     I decided to look at the photos of my former desert garden, and it immediately brightened my mood.  All these  photos are of the beautiful flowers I grew in the desert.

pansies and petunias

 white petunias

garden angel among the petunias

Mr. Lincon roses

blue cup

gazania

     This garden will be tucked away in memory for the joy it brought me.  I"ll remember gardens past and dream of future gardens.  Do you remember and cherish gardens in your past?

My Son's Garden

bush beans

7/15/12

      My younger son has been gardening since he started college.  At that time it was mostly container plants.  Now that he has a house with a yard, he has room for not only plants and flowers, but a vegetable garden which he gardens organically.

     I've been over to view his garden a few times and took the following photos of what he is growing.

    






serrano peppers



corn

cucumber

  

Better Boy tomatoes

habernero peppers

strawberries

   

Purple Beauty peppers

Jamaican red  peppers

last of the lettuce

   

     This is not the full extent of his garden.  He grows many herbs which will be pictured in another post. 

The Heat is On



 7/8/12

Vitex

     Well, I thought when I left Arizona, I left all the heat behind.  These last two weeks here, as in other areas of the country, have been brutal.  It has been above 95 F every day with several days hitting 100 F or more.  It was 105 F here yesterday, although I learned the all-time high in this area stands at 106 F.  At least it is not 112 F, which it is in the Phoenix area today.  The compressor went on the AC unit last evening, so we had another hot, sleepless night.  A repair person came at 3:00 am to diagnose the problem, so they could get us on the schedule for today.  They have been working around the clock doing repairs in this heat.

     The local flowers seem to be holding up in this weather.  My next door neighbors have been transferred and have moved away, but they threw some flower seeds in their side vegetable garden this spring.  New neighbors are moving in this week.  Here are photos of what came up in the garden next door.

neighbors flower garden

cosmos

bachelor buttons

poppy

coreopsis

     I am not sure what this flower is.  I'm hoping some gardener can tell me. 

Family and Flowers

7/3/12

     This past week was devoted to family coming from all over the US for a reunion in our area.  Relatives have been coming and going all week, moving from house to house since many of our relatives live in the Maryland/Virginia area.  We were all able to gather together on Saturday at the community center.  Thankfully the community center had power after that monster storm, as most of us did not.  We were able to pick up all the food we ordered and seek refuge from the 100 degree heat.  It was stifling in our house with relatives sleeping all over.  But with no TV or internet, the art of conversation resurfaced, and we had some interesting discussions.

foxglove

    It was scary for the two days we were without power because the water pumping stations were down, and we had a trickle coming our of the faucets.  We had to buy cases of bottled water.  Gas was difficult to find because many of the gas stations were without power and couldn't pump.  The Emergency 911 system and its backup went down in the county and is still not fully up.  Our vulnerability is showing.  We only lost two tree limbs in the back yard, but there are fallen trees and tree litter everywhere, and many homes and stores still don't have power.

     My flowerpots on the front porch weren't harmed, and the plants in them are starting to bloom.  Here is what's blooming now.

snapdragon

gomphrena

begonia

     Our neighborhood has a small parade and get-together tomorrow according to the flyer in our mailbox.  We'll be attending.  Happy 4th to all.

An Abundance of Wildlife

6/24/12

a deer in my backyard

          I am so thrilled to be back in Virginia where I can see wildlife every day.  As I mentioned in my last post, our neighborhood is surrounded by a storm water management area, so there are lots of grassy and wooded areas.  There is a lake for water runoff and a couple of creeks that drain through the area.  All this supports several wildlife species.  Here is a series of photos of the wildlife I have been able to catch with my camera.

a rabbit munching in the backyard

geese in a grassy area near the lake

squirrel on my deck

a toad in a flowerpot on my deck

a beetle on my front porch

     I have not been able to catch the fox that lives in the area, but I hear it regularly.  When I was living in the desert, I really missed songbirds.  Only during migration times would I hear them.  But here in Virginia their melodies fill the air.  I have not been able to photograph the woodpeckers (I've seen two different kinds), or the owls (I've never been able to find then), but I hear them almost daily in the woods behind the house.  I'll end the post with a photo I thought was unique.  As I was photographing the geese you saw above, a deer walked out of the woods and wandered right through the flock.  The geese did not seemed bothered at all.  As soon as the deer heard my camera click and saw the flash, it dashed away.

deer walking through flock of geese

Local Flora

6/18/12

wild grape

     Our neighborhood is surrounded by a storm water management area (commonly called a floodplain area) where there are certain tracts of land that structures cannot be built on.  Because of this the neighborhood has some grassy and wooded areas where native plants and trees grow wild.

     There is an abundance of wild flora in the area, some I recognize, some I don't.  Here is a sampling of what's growing.

     There are several species of wild grape in Virginia, most of which are similar and difficult to tell apart.  The most common are Fox grape, Summer grape, and Riverbank grape.  Wild grapes are woody vines that can grow along the ground or climb over 30 feet tall on other vegetation.  There is lots of this growing in the wooded areas covering other bushes and tree trunks.  Some species have leaves that are divided into 3 to 5 lobes.  The leaves are toothed along the edge and taper to a point.  The vines use tendrils to grab onto other plants.  Small, green flowers bloom May to July.  The purplish-black fruit ripens August to October.

pokeweed

     Pokeweed (or pokeberry, pokebush, poke sallet) is a bushy, non-woody perennial that can grow from 3 to 10 feet tall and resemble a small tree.  It has lance-shaped leaves.  The small, white flowers appear on long racemes
from May until frost and form purple-black berries.  About the time the berries start to ripen, the stem turns from green to red.  Although all parts of the plant are supposedly toxic, very young shoots and leaves are sometimes cooked and eaten as greens.  Young shoots and leaves are less toxic and cooking reduces the toxicity further.  The juice from the berries was once used for ink and dye.  I've seen only a few of these in this area.

wild raspberry

     There are a couple of large stands of wild raspberry at the edge of the woods.  This shrub with soft, woody stems can produce canes up to 5 feet tall.  The canes are usually upright, but can trail along the ground, spreading by roots produced where the canes meet the ground.  The stems have thorns, and three leaflets emerge from each bud along the stem.  The leaves are oval and have toothed edges.  The shrub produces small, five-petal white flowers.  The most common berries produced are red and black, but there are yellow and purple varieties.  Raspberry tea from the roots and leaves have been used for a wide variety of ailments.  In this photo you can see some wild grape growing over the raspberry bush.  There is so much more growing in the woods that I am not familiar with that I will have to do some research to satisfy my curiosity.