This and That: A Blog

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge The Crayola Box of 8 - Green 

  Spintop Mango Blanketflower I bought two of these at the FFA sale last year.  I missed the sale this year, they had it earlier than usual and I didn't check their site until too late.  One lovely lettuce that snails didn't get.  Lots of Hood June-bearing strawberries.  Small but very sweet. I don't know where this foxglove came from, I've never planted any.  The photo on the right shows the hole nectar robbing bees left.  Bees to large to get to the nectar will chew holes.  Other bees are learning  that the holes make it easy to reach the nectar and using them, which skips pollination.  Some populations of foxglove and columbine have reduced numbers of seeds.  I love black cumin.  It's not a cumin at all, it's related to love-in-a-mist.  That's pretty easy to tell!   This is love-in-the-mist.  As fat as this bumblebee is, it has no trouble getting into the Dazzler penstemon blooms. 

 The Herb Garden area is as colorful as the front yard. Almost, yesterday the yellow Moonshine yarrow in the front yard made an appearance.  Blue Flax (oops, this particular plant isn't in the Herb Garden, but there is Blue Flax there) Blue-Eyed Grass (not a grass, it's in the iris family) A California poppy, sea thrift and Persian catmint combo. Firewitch Dianthus  Boy, does this one ever self-seed! Ixia in front of the dianthus.  The corms came from the Dollar Tree a few years ago.  Juniper Thyme I bought from Mountain Valley Growers quite a few years ago.  They have a nice herb selection.  I keep this as an ornamental, cooking with my common thyme.  Persian catmint and sea thrift again, with Hot and Spicy oregano on the right, Golden oregano clumped in the upper right. Not an herb, but growing in a container near a rosemary.  The sole survivor of a snail invasion. Also in the Herb Garden area are the large nursery pots I used last year...