Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Tropical Garden
When you live in Iowa, you are 'pushing the zone' even having a flower garden; it's too hot, too cold, too dry, too flat, too something. More often than not if you get too frisky you end up with a label and a bare spot, but there are some surprises: this is Asarum maximum, the Chinese panda faced ginger. I bought it one spring as a pot plant for the greenhouse, but decided to plant in the garden and repot it in the fall. I, of course forgot it, and to my surprise it survived... it hasn't thrived, but it's persisted in the garden with no protection for four years. it's rated Z7-10.
A Walk In The Garden Today
Friday, April 29, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
I had earlier talked about Azalea 'Pale Lilac'. Perhaps this picture captures it a little better, and below showing it with foliage in the background.
I had earlier showed Arisaema urashima; this picture better shows the long proboscis (rat-tail).
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Hissy Fit
I like, on evening walks, to amble down the hill to the pond, to see what's going on there, but a pair of Canadian geese are nesting there and start honking like crazy and flapping their wings; hopefully they get their family raised before we decide to put the canoe in the pond! Of course the birds around here are all atwitter about the discovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpeckers in Arkansas. Our woodpecker menagerie here isn't bad: yellow-shafted flicker, red bellied, red headed, hairy, pileated, and downy. I leave the dead trees standing for them, though not too long ago I was out on the deck and a dead tree across the ravine came crashing down, and rolled down hill with a roar. In my backpacking days we called them widowmakers.
A Walk In The Garden Today
