Here’s a picture of a white cosmos up close, taken a couple of days ago in Bend, Oregon. Cooler weather is on the way so it may soon disappear. They are one of my favorite flowers!
Macro Monday (MM)
Flower of the Day (FOTD)
When I went on the High Desert Garden Tour in Bend, Oregon in July 2022, I was impressed by a couple edibles & more gardens. Their yards had edible plants in the front, sides, and back.
These are gooseberries growing on a shrub in full sun. I remember a gooseberry plant at one of my childhood homes.
These radishes were in a raised bed. We grow them as well and I love their spicy taste.
Raspberries! One of my favorite fruits. Over the years, our dogs have enjoyed eating them off the vines so we have to pick them fast.
Florists and gardeners use red flowers to represent a wide variety of emotions and characteristics. You may associate them with love, but they have many other meanings.
Columbines are symbols of strength, wisdom, and peace. Red columbines symbolize love, intense emotions, and encouragement.
Hibiscus are symbols of youth, beauty, success, glory, and femininity. Red hibiscus symbolize romance and love.
Black-eyed Susans are symbols of justice, inspiring motivation and positive changes. They are sometimes associated with the sense of wonder of childhood.
Poppies are symbols of remembrance and hope. The flowers are used to recognize members of the Armed Forces around the world. In some cultures, red poppies represent love and success.
Indian paintbrush are symbols of creativity, passion, and the pursuit of dreams. Their red and orange flowers represent fiery energy and the drive needed to achieve your goals.
Red flowers stand out in both wild and cultivated landscapes.
Meanings of flowers may vary, depending on the source. For this post, I relied on information on Petal Republic.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Primary Colors LAPC
Flower of the Day FOTD
Do you need to weed? It’s not something we want to do, but it’s something we have to do.
Some weeds are pretty, but spread aggressively. I call this one the “Root of all Evil” because it can be hard to pull and develops seed heads almost as soon as it pops out of the ground.
About an acre of our land is planted with landscaping, fruit, or vegetable plants. We need to weed often, especially in the spring. Today I’ll share some tips and tools that may help you when you need to weed.
I have tried several seats while weeding, and this is my favorite. You can sit on it as a seat or flip it over and kneel on it.
My dogs like when I sit on it because then I’m at their level. Shelby thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to play fetch with me.
“Monkey tree can’t pinch me!” I remember saying that as a kid every time we drove past one of these odd trees on the way to our grandparents’ house. We would try to be the first one to pinch our siblings before they could pinch us. Did anyone else play that game?
Monkey puzzle trees, Araucaria auracana, are native to Chile and Argentina but grow well in many parts of the world. In their native habitat, they grow to a height of 100-130 feet, but in gardens in North America mature at 30-40 feet.
Their common name originated in 1850 when Charles Austin, who was visiting a friend’s garden in England, remarked, “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that.” Those triangular leaves have sharp edges and tips!
A glistening serpent slithers through a natural frame of duckweed and sedges
White calla lilies, surrounded by leathery green leaves, enlighten
Crimson canna lily leaves punctuate a layered landscape of greenness
Continue readingThese Canna Lily leaves are beautiful up close. Lovely shapes, lines, and colors.
Macro Monday (MM)
Flower of the Day (FOTD)
It’s time once again to share a piece of my artwork for the First Friday Art prompt. I created this watercolor painting yesterday afternoon. This is a cholla cactus in bloom. For my inspiration this month, I looked in my own backyard.
We have a few kinds of cactus growing in our landscaping. You have to be careful when working around them or you’ll get poked by the barbed spines. I held my phone out at arm’s length and snapped a picture, but I couldn’t see the photo I took. It turned out surprisingly well, I thought. I like the how the spines radiate outward from the magenta blossom.
Several chollas grow in my backyard. I started a couple in the front yard by placing a cactus stem on the ground. There was no drip irrigation going to those parts of the landscaping, but the plants grew anyway.
Here’s one of the propagated cholla plants blooming. It’s doing great, and currently measures about three feet across.
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
First Friday Art (FFA)
Flower of the Day Challenge (FOTD)
A fall Japanese maple surrounded by green trees at the Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. The red leaves of the maple are surrounded by cedar, pine, and spruce trees.
I always think of yellow and gold flower petals as capturing sunlight in a flower.
The flowers shown in this post of little rays of sunshine are dedicated to fellow blogger, Bren, of Brashley Photography.
She recently lost her fight with cancer but will be remembered for her stunning, ethereal portraits of flowers. May her gentle soul rest in peace.
I saw this little bit of everything garden on the High Desert Garden Tour in Bend, Oregon in July 2022. The long, narrow yard at this house included fruits, vegetables, and lots of flowers. The homeowners have been working on it for 22 years.
The owners created large, elevated raised beds from wood and tin roofing. You can see sweet alyssum blooming near the front edge. Hummingbird feeders hang near them. They’re growing pear, cherry, and apples on espaliers behind the raised beds.
This raised bed was at ground level. It included red lantana, yellow petunias, orange ganzia, purple salvia, and dark pink snapdragons.
This tiered bed surrounded a tree. It included common sunflowers, orange marigolds, and golden celosia.
This Oregon sunshine bouquet was growing in my yard. This plant is common in a variety of habitats in western North America.
Oregon sunshine, Eriophyllum lanatum, is a shrubby perennial that grows well in light shade to full sun. They’re obviously drought tolerant, since I don’t water this part of our High Desert property at all. These plants reach a size of one to two feet wide and one to two feet tall. I like their bright yellow, long-lasting flowers. Pollinators and birds like them as well.
It grows so well here, I end up pulling most of the plants like weeds. One year, I decided to just let them grow in a large gravel-covered area. The thick “lawn” of plants, shown below, prevented some of our common weeds from growing.
The Hollinshead Park gardens in Bend, Oregon include a community garden and a water-wise garden.
The community garden at Hollinshead Park is managed by a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University Extension Service, Central Oregon Master Gardener Association, and Bend Park and Recreation District.
Local gardeners grow fruit, vegetables, and flowers on 90 reserved plots.
Gardeners plant in concise or freeform patterns. Some use various supports or covers.
It’s a great place to take pictures throughout the year.
This small but bountiful garden was behind a house in northeast Bend, Oregon. This was one of the featured stops on the High Desert Garden Tour in July 2022.
These purple clematis were beautiful. There’s also a peek of an Annabelle hydrangea shrub in this photo.
These long-blooming flowers are a type of daisy. I think they’re Shasta daisies. You can see a multi-colored Euonymus shrub on the left side.
The water garden seating blends into the background near the end of the bridge in this landscape. Duckweed covers the surface of the pond, adding to the predominant green color.
This paperbark maple, Acer griseum, was growing in the Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. This tree grows to a height of 20 – 30 feet.
TheGardenWebsite.com refers to paperbark maples as a “hardy, tough and well-behaved tree.” Their peeling, cinnamon-colored bark is beautiful throughout the year.
The species name, griseum, refers to the grey color on the underside of the leaves. In the fall, the leaves turn various colors of red, orange, and yellow. This maple produces distinctive winged seeds are known as “samaras” or “helicopters.”
I saw this gorgeous pink chrysanthemum on the High Desert Garden Tour last year. Though native to China and northeastern Europe, these plants do well in many parts of the world. The long-lasting flowers are available in a variety of colors. These include pink, purple, orange, yellow, white, and red. Unlike many of the plants that grow in High Desert gardens, this one is not appetizing to deer. A big plus around here!
Here’s a photograph of Euphorbia, up close, growing in the fall. In spring, this type has bright yellow flowers. These plants, also known as ‘spurge’, are drought tolerant and easy to grow. There are more than 2,000 types of Euphorbia.
This whimsical weeping hemlock sculpture is in the Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. The weeping growth pattern of this hemlock works perfectly for this garden feature.
The power of red blossoms radiating in the garden.
Crimson petals briefly unfold, reaching towards a cloudless sky
And the memory of their fire burns deep within your soul.
Skimmia shrub with berries up close. This plant was seen at the Portland Japanese Garden in the fall.
The details of leaves,
Rounded, serrated leaflets bearing tidbits of sweetness.
Arching narrow leaves falling in cascades of ombre colors.
Last July, on the High Desert Garden Tour in Bend, I was happy to see a place to pause in a xeriscaped garden. What is xeriscaping, you may ask. Here’s the dictionary definition:
a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (such as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation)
Merriam-Webster dictionary
Are xeriscaped gardens boring? No! This garden was designed by Rick Martinson, formerly of Wintercreek Restoration and Nursery. He’s now the executive director of the Worthy Garden Club. Rick has been encouraging people to use plants that require little water for years.
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust
A little play on the words “let us” with this up close picture of lettuce growing in Hollinshead Park’s community garden in Bend, Oregon.
Today I’ll share a few stories related to special flowers in my life.
Whenever I see roses, I think of a funny thing that happened to me when I was in my early twenties. I had just started dating a guy who checked parking passes where I worked. I invited him to my cozy little A-frame house on Puget Sound in Washington state. When we got to my house, I pulled open the screen door and there was a bouquet of roses tucked next to the main door. I grinned and asked if they were from him. “No,” he said sheepishly. He pulled a bouquet of roses from behind his back. Oops. The flowers in my door were from a different admirer. Awkward!
I took these photos on the High Desert Garden Tour this summer. The tour takes place in different Central Oregon locations, from sprawling rural ranches to tiny city yards. This year the featured gardens were in Bend.
There are an abundance of flowers growing along the path near the Hayden Homes Amphitheater in Bend, Oregon. I always look forward to walking there in the late summer and early fall months. Can you see why?
Did you ever wonder where hula hoops come from? I think I found out. They’re grown from tiny round seeds at the community garden in Hollinshead Park in Bend. 😁
Monochrome Monday (MM)
How can your canine companions go so quickly from being a clean dog to a dirty dog?
I walked my dog recently along this trail bordered with flowers in the Old Mill district of Bend.
I often play fetch with her after we get home. The second picture shows what she looks like after she catches her ball a few times when we’ve had a little rain.
What a pretty girl! Can she sit on your lap? 😉
Today I received a little gift of beauty after a tragedy. A couple weeks ago, at a local grocery store, a young gunman killed an elderly customer, an employee that tried to stop him, and then himself. The community is still dealing with the tragedy, but is moving forward.
The store reopened today and employees were happy to see customers returning. Customers received an orchid plant as a token of the store’s appreciation. I thought it was interesting they chose to give customers orchids.
Orchids are epiphytes, often growing on other plants. The host plants offer support to these beautiful plants. Orchids rely on their host plants for survival, but they don’t harm them. Orchids enrich their shared environment.
Bend, Oregon and other places are learning to deal with tragedy. We are hesitant to depend upon each other for support, but when we do, our shared communities blossom and prosper.
Find beauty after a tragedy where you can and share it with others. 🙂
A cool place to rest at the Portland Japanese Garden last fall. There are comfortable places to pause and take in the scenery throughout the garden. Cooler temperatures and colorful autumn leaves are just around the corner in the Pacific Northwest.
I saw these multi-colored trailing petunias in a hanging basket in downtown Bend. Since they produce so many flowers, another common name for this plant is ‘million bells.’
These perennials are hybrids from plants originally grown in South America. They bloom from spring through first frost and they’re easy to grow. They make a perfect addition to hanging baskets.
As sweltering temperatures occur here and elsewhere around the world, my mind keeps wandering back to the landscape near the pagoda lantern at the Portland Japanese Garden. I visited this impressive garden on a cool day in late October. The waterfall near the sculpture, Heavenly Waterfall, enters a small pond, full of koi fish.
This ‘snow-viewing’ pagoda lantern (Yukimi-dōrō) is located in the the Lower Pond section of the garden. The roof, or umbrella, on these lanterns is designed to catch the snowfall. These sculptures are traditionally placed near water.
Though it’s still a couple of months away, I’m looking forward to the cooler temperatures of autumn and the bright splashes of colorful leaves.
Here’s an up close view of prickly pear cactus buds in my garden. Yes, those spikes are sharp and difficult to weed around, but I eagerly await the day when their delicate yellow flowers unfurl.
Here’s a picture of tulips up close growing in my garden. There’s something special about these two flowers.
They are the first to make it to this stage without being eaten by our resident deer!
