Well Garden Bloggers Bloom Day snuck up on me. So many things are blooming in the garden. I'll give you a taste of them. I'll start with the vegetable garden since it is so near and dear to my heart.
In the Three Sisters Garden the Ottowa Cranberry Beans are starting to bloom. I was surprised to find out they weren't white, but a pretty pink. The cucumbers are blooming too, but the squash are being very slow this year. Last year I ate my first zucchini on June 16th. This year they are in bud, but not quite blooming.
The cilantro has taken over my Three Sisters Garden since it has been so cool. It loves this weather. The bees think this is the best flower in the garden.
The dill is everywhere, but the best ones are in my onion patch. They are six feet tall. I have trouble taking photos of the flowers because they are taller than I am.
I have a few pretty flowers that are in the vegetable garden too. The nasturtiums are rivaling the tithonia for who can be brighter. I think the nasturiums might have won, but it is close.
The Johnny-Jump-Ups seem like shy little flowers in comparison. They are such troopers. They were the first flowers to bloom this year in my garden in March and more keep blooming.
The prettiest flower in my perennial border are my lilies. The day lilies come close, but these win by a nose. I have a lot of flowers in bud in the border, but very few in bloom. It is a really late year for the summer blooms.
The most interesting flower in the garden are my Ghost Pipes or Monotropa uniflora. They look like fungi but aren't. They are parasites and lack chlorophyll. Weirdly they feed on fungi not plants. The fungi they feed on in my back yard are mycorrhizal fungi that are symbiotic with my oak trees. So if my oak trees didn't have a lot of healthy mycorrhizal fungi then I wouldn't have any ghost pipes. It is a very strange circle of life going on with the parasites feeding off of the symbiotes.
Hey Daphne, good morning!
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful photos! I don't know about those Ghost Pipes... kind of weird looking! They remind me of mushrooms. Do they come up every year?
I just love Lilies and their greenery.
Hi Daphne, your photos are incredible! Those ghost pipes are fabulous too, lucky you with healthy oak mycs! Do you have morels too? I think I remember that they love the mycs of oaks. We had some at our other TN house, yummy!
ReplyDeleteFrances
The ghost pipes are very unusual, I have never seen anything like that before! Perfect bee photo!
ReplyDeleteHappy Bloom Day Daphne - what an interesting post, gorgeous nasturtium (I wish I could get that close in when I'm taking a pic) and fascinating ghostpipes. I enjoyed your deathday posting too! Back soon.
ReplyDeleteThose ghost pipes are amazing! They look so beautiful with the sun shining through them. And I love the name - so evocative!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely variety of plants you have growing! I love weird and the ghost pipes are calling for me... where did you get them? Or did they come up on their own?
ReplyDeleteNice nasturtium; mine are growing in a container and haven't bloomed yet. Those ghost pipes are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI love johnny jump ups and every year think I'll grow them and candy them. Oh well, there's always next year.
ReplyDeletePretty bee picture!
Love your pictures. The ghost pipes are new for me. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI left a comment on your tomatoes yesterday, but I guess it got lost. I love that you name your plants.
ReplyDeleteToni, yes they come up every year. This year they are more numerous and have bigger clumps than in previous years.
ReplyDeleteFrances, sadly I have never seen morels here. We have a lot of mushrooms in the yard of a million different kinds, but not those.
Dan, thanks
Scattered Gardener, oh dear that reminds me. I keep forgetting to take photos for Death Day. It is so unconscious to just fix the issue (rip the plant out and replace, or cut off the dying leaves). I never think to photograph the death when it is happening.
thedroolingvegetable, I do like the name. When Carol was espousing Latin names I was trying to argue that common names often have so much more personality. I used the Ghost Pipes as an example.
Kristin, sadly they are not something that you can transplant as far as I know. They need very specific fungi in the soil to live and any time they get the slightest damage to them, they rot out. They need a forest rich in humus. My whole back yard is oak forest, part of it has grass under the trees. The plants seem to like the transition zone right after the grass ends and where the leafy humus zone starts. Most of them are about one to two feet into the leafy area. If you have such an area I could try to collect the seed. I can't promise anything, but if you do, send me an email.
Sally, mine just started blooming so I'm sure yours aren't too far off.
Stefaneener, when I was a kid I once candied violets. I haven't thought about doing that in years.
MissyM, Thanks.
Lovely photos!
ReplyDeleteHappy GBBD Daphne, what wonderful colour... especially the lily... a beautiful shot :-D
ReplyDeleteGosh... that ghost plant is stangely wierd but stunning and the same time too!
I love the ghost pipes!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite are the ghost pipes. I have never seen them in person and so wish that I had them in my garden! I do occasionally get morels, but only very, and I always seem to find them only after their prime.
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