whats blooming

The Wild Geraniums are prolific this year, the right amount of rain at the right time I guess.

Geranium maculatum or Wild Geranium

Prairie Smoke or Geum triflorum or Old Man's Whiskers

I was happy to see the Prairie Smoke in our wild gardens this year.
A deer went through and ate some of my Lupines and my Baptisia...dirty buggers anyway.

Yesterday I did laundry and cleaned the bathroom and unpacked the rest of our "stuff".  It rained here and it is cool.  Possibly it will be a cool wet summer....who knows!   My other baby brother and his bride mowed our lawn last Wednesday so the lawn is good for a few days.

Far Side

Pretty Penstemon

I think a bird relocated some seeds for us.

We have never had a Large Beardtongue or Penstemon grandiflorus outside of the sauna…but we do now.  We had some in a nearby wildflower bed one year.  It is a native wildflower.

It is a wonderful plant…one of those no fuss plants that likes the sandy soil.

My abscessed tooth is feeling better, the antibiotics are doing their job.  I will follow up with the dentist soon. He is due back today, he has a small office, it is just him, when he is gone there is no one to cover for him.   If you have a problem you go to the ER and I didn’t feel that it was that much of an emergency.  He will probably change my antibiotics when he returns and schedule an appointment for an xray. I will probably have to see an Oral Surgeon..yippie for me. Oh well for now I won’t put the cart before the horse.

I watched a movie called Wild Oats on Netflix it was pretty good I give it 5 out of 5 stars.  Some parts just cracked me up…especially the phone scene.

Fallness

I can almost taste Fall in the air.  The days are almost too warm..in the mid eighties but the nights are delightfully cool.  I end up shutting all the windows before morning.

The fall flowers are in bloom.

The Asters of fall..I am not sure if this is a Crooked Stem Aster or not..it is a pretty little Aster…I guess I will leave it at that.

I have 16 days left at the museum and many projects to finish up.  Oh I am so not a newsletter person..but it is almost ready to mail out.  I wish I had a secretary..that knew all the ins and out of the publisher program. Oh and someone who knows all about PSI files..one of the former Directors scanned a bunch of photographs and saved them to CD in that format..Why??  I have no idea?  I can go into the images in some fancy viewer(Irfanview)..some files I can save as Jpegs and some will not convert. ( Stomping my foot up and down..what am I doing wrong?) Why..why why are some people idiots? OR is it I that is bordering on Idiotdom?

Yesterday Sam came downstairs to visit with me a bit about the Civil War..his Mom who works upstairs in the Art Museum home schools him.  He is a doll.. and was very interested in the Civil War.  He knew quite a bit about it already..so we just added to his knowledge.  I found three great books in the Library Vault for him to look at.  Having someone to talk with really broke up my day and helped me to fight the wish I was done with the newsletter and images that will not convert feelings I struggled with most of the day.

Visitors to the museum have really slacked off. Of course it is warm again..and who wants to be in a stuffy old museum anyway?  I want to be outside too ..enjoying the Fallness:(

Wild Iris

It is summer now, we have had summer for three whole days..and it has rained and rained.  Finally yesterday afternoon we saw the sun.  That has been our weather pattern, it rains for three or four days or the wind howls like a banshee and then we have one nice day which is usually windy.  So far it is a non summer.

The flowers bloom anyway.  The Blue Flag Iris are blooming.  We found this one close by.

This is a Wild Iris/Blue Flag Iris being choked out by Leafy Spurge..it does make for a pretty photograph..but also a sad one.

Far Guys Wild Iris/Blue Flag Iris  are beautiful.  He planted these from seed a number of years ago.  Last year he had one bloom and I missed taking a photo of it.  This year he has two blooms and two buds..success.  His patience and persistence has paid off.

Iris have really strappy upright foliage, I think perhaps a dog who shall remain nameless may have played ball in this flower garden:)

A few wildflowers

As most of you know I love Native Wildflowers.  Last year I wrote about a number of them and what bloomed when.  This year I am trying to fill in the blanks, either the flowers I missed or the ones that did not photograph well.  

This is the Downey Yellow Violet or Viola pubescens.  A tiny little cheerful yellow bloom.  The purple veins are runways  for insects, showing them the way to the pollen and nectar. 

I also like to take photos of companion plants. I was disappointed that we did not get north of here or south of here to see the Trilliums in bloom. They bloom Memorial Day Weekend.  Then late one afternoon I found some in a spot about a 7 miles south of our house..I was pleased.

The Trillium is on the left and the Large-Flowered Bellwort is on the right. Both are beautiful little plants that compliment each other..they are woodland friends. 

Far Guys Trillium made it through another winter.  They only bloom for a few days. She is stunning.

 

Far Guy planted out some tomato seedlings that he grew in his greenhouse/workshop.  He also planted some onions and apparently he ran onto some watermelon seed so he planted that in his small garden too.

It has finally warmed up, today we are headed for highs in the eighties..we bypassed the seventies completely.  With our non spring it seems we have been thrust right into the steamy bosom of summer:(

Winter Planting

Sometimes we have to strew a few seeds in the winter in order to have some summer flowers.  Some seeds benefit from the extreme cold found in a snowbank, in the spring they will be watered by the snow as it melts  and hopefully they will grow! I took this photo last summer, can you tell what it is?

Far Guy had collected some of this plants seed heads last fall, he put them in a paper bag. One evening he got his collection out and began to clean seeds..it is putzy work..but he enjoys it. He separates the seeds from the chaff. I think he just likes the feel of the seeds falling out of the flower heads onto his collection paper..and watching his seed bag fill up!

He had a plan, he wanted to strew some seeds out in the snowbanks between snowfalls. He would like the whole area near the sauna and my garage filled with wildflowers. He gave me a spiel about a quaint little split rock walkway meandering out to the sauna..with wildflowers growing on both sides. He painted a pretty picture.

Here it is blooming, it is a Grey Headed Coneflower or Ratibida pinnata. It is a prairie flower and grows in dry woods and prairies. It likes the sun, and usually grows about four feet tall and the deer don't eat it! It is not fussy about soil or moisture. The only thing I dislike about it is that it is hard to photograph on windy days...because the plants are so tall they sway in the breeze. It is a plant native to Minnesota:)