Friday fleurs

As you can tell, I love color, particularly in the garden! My favorites this week are each a bit unusual.

Can you tell what this flower is? It is usually pink, white or purple, has no scent and takes months to germinate from seed. It originated from the prairie gentian. 

This coloration is not seen often- more of a rogue. It has a color-washed look to it.

I included this rose because it looks like someone took their paint brush to it. No, I don't know its name! Perhaps I should be more attentive...

I believe this is the third year for us to grow dahlias. They require lots of water, can get by with partial sun, although they prefer as much as possible. They also require some sort of staking. If you get lax about this, they'll fall over. The good thing is that they are very adaptable and will change direction and continue to grow upwards again. We have a few dahlias that fell, the stems were actually horizontal, adapted and are now all growing upwards again, with the stems actually like an "L". We don't pamper many plants here! Our rule of thumb is that if it can live in a pot outside all winter and still survive, it is welcome in our garden!

Check out this dahlia. Most of the blooms are the deep, rich burgundy, but this has a few white petals thrown in for good measure.

Have a great Labor Day weekend! Hopefully, Hurricane Earl will miss most of the U.S.! 

I'll be joining the decorating team and working on two weddings. Yeah for the return of the cooler weather!

Thank you, Cindy, at My Romantic Home, for Show & Tell Friday.

Thank you, Artie at Color Outside the Lines for Vignette Friday.

Flower Closeups: Can you guess the names?

Come join us for Friday's garden round-up and contest!

I present to you a collection of flowers in my yard. Some flowers will be easy to identify and some will be challenging. There are photos of flowers and also of  seed pods.

The person who comes closest to identifying the last two flowers below will win a copy of

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener

You do not need the formal name; the common name is fine.

I couldn't resist this closeup of the former resident Japanese beetles. 

OK- we'll start with the easier-to-identify flowers.

  Dahlia bud

Honeysuckle

Oriental lily

Passion flower vine

How are you doing so far?

Now we'll go to the more challenging ones.

Can you guess what plants these are?

#5

#6

#7

  #8

#9

#10

#11

How did you do?

The answers are:
#5-Succulents  #6-Hydrangea seed pod  #7-False buckeye seed pod  
#8-Tree peony seed pod  #9-Spring anemone seed pod

Please email your answers to: roseetlisblog@gmail.com

Our darling dog, Bella, just turned 1 year old and I am happy to report that she is finally beginning to mellow out a bit. Talk about an intense dog. Thankfully, she does not have a mean bone in her body. Just lots and lots of energy!

 

Happy Fourth of July weekend!

I will post the contest winner when I return. 

At that time, please also look for my new name and look (but still at the same address)!

Thank you, Cindy, at My Romantic Home

and

Jessica, for Favorite Things Friday.

 

An elm and a thank you!

I would like to give a HUGE thank you to Catherine at The Shiny Pebble for today's so very generous and amazing post on me and All things paint and plaster...

I am humbled! (Honestly, I've never seen such a big picture of myself!)

Catherine, you have a talent with words.  Again, thank you.

When I visit the Netherlands for family get togethers, I am always amazed at these "stumps" of trees that one observes all over the country. As explained by my significant other, quite simply, the trees need to be pruned. 

Because the Dutch love to garden, but live on small parcels of land (the Netherlands is a one of the most densely populated countries), they have become expert pruners. They never use the good old American start-your-engines wackers! They prune by hand, figuring out what they want the tree/plant to look like and pruning so that the growth goes in the preferred direction. 

Would you ever dream that our just-pruned weeping elm would even survive this major pruning, much less grow and thrive? It is now 13 years old and receives this haircut yearly.

Look at the downspout- the big hail storm did that!

Now watch it grow!

April 29th

May 4th

May 27th

This photo is not from my own tree. I have searched my computer and can't locate the photo! I'll photograph our tree again in full growth to update this post. Our elm will look like this, but more narrow, as its space to live in is only five feet wide.

credit

Thank you to Cindy from My Romantic Home for inviting us in for Show and Tell Friday.