Bloom Day – June 2010

I’m a couple of days late for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, a long running meme started by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, but I still want to share some photos of what’s blooming around Happy Acres in mid-June.

This Gloriosa daisy is a favorite of many pollinators. We set out a few plants in the slope garden in 2008, and we’ve had daisies popping up ever since!

Inside the greenhouse I’ve got this Dwarf Singapore pink plumeria blooming. It’s the first of my small plumeria collection (4 plants) to reach the blooming stage. I’ve loved the sight and smell of plumerias ever since I visited Hawaii and saw the huge, fragrant ones they grow there.

This white Echinacea in the slope garden is also visited often by pollinators and butterflies.

Here’s a more familiar Echinacea color, with a bumblebee admirer.

The pink yarrow is a dependable bloomer for us, and the deer don’t bother it either.

In the vegetable garden, the blossoms on this Purple Queen green bean are very ornamental, but the beans are beautiful and tasty as well.

This Stokes’ Aster flower is just starting to open up, and already a bee is checking it out.

This frittilary butterfly was checking out all the coneflowers.

The Blue Angel hosta is blooming in the shade garden. This is one that has so far escaped the nibbling deer. I love the way it looks in the dappled light, growing at the base of the giant mulberry tree.

And finally, this little yellow flower in the greenhouse is attached to a cucumber. Its salad days are surely ahead of it!

This entry was posted in Gardening, Photography and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

8 Responses to Bloom Day – June 2010

  1. Beautiful photographs Villager! I meant to mention the other day that I love your new header graphic with the coneflowers and bees. Your Plumeria is gorgeous, from this distance. I discovered at my first luau in Hawaii, when they draped a Plumeria lei around my neck, that I’m highly allergic to them! I think they’re beautiful…I just can’t get too close.

    I agree, even our deer don’t bother yarrow…most of ours have been lost to the gophers. We sat out on the deck one morning and watched a whole young plant disappear underground! There one minute…gone the next.

  2. It is so nice to see your beautiful flowers attracting so many pollinators. I am partial to purple coneflowers, they are so pretty. We are getting small cucumbers in our vegetable garden too 🙂

  3. LynnS says:

    What gorgeous blooms! You captured the photo of the cucumber blossom at a wonderful angle. Nicely done.

    So great that you have some Plumeria. I have still never seen one in person, but enjoy those photos I see online.

    Have you figured out which Hosta the deer prefer? They like my Albo Marginata the best. lol

    • Villager says:

      Thanks Lynn. We still need to check out a digital SLR. THEN we could really take some photos!

      The deer seem to like all of the hostas, given a chance. I’ve been using some hot pepper wax spray and it seems to work at keeping them at bay. I bought what I’m using now, but I don’t see why I couldn’t whip some homemade version up. The active ingredients are hot peppers and rotten eggs. OMG, I’m starting to sound like Jerry Baker! They’ll take away my MG badge if I’m not careful.

  4. Angela says:

    My first reaction at the second photo was: A plumeria is Indiana?????? Of course, your greenhouse… Nice plant!
    I miss hostas, my climate doesn’t suit them, yours looks great. The frittilary on the cone flower is beautiful. I just saw one on a gazenia earlier today.

    • Villager says:

      We’ve not had much luck with gazenias, even though I thought they were easy to grow. Too bad you can’t grow hostas.

      I grew plumerias before I had the greenhouse. I overwinter them in the basement, under lights. Then I bring them outside (or into the greenhouse) in spring where they stay until freezing weather comes. They’re really pretty easy to grow in containers, as long as you don’t overwater in winter.

  5. Robin says:

    Beautiful photos Villager. My favorite is the one with the butterfly. I have been taking a lot of flower photos….but, haven’t managed to post them yet. My “Little Helper” keeps me quite busy during the day and when he goes home…this NaNa needs to rest 🙂

  6. Melody says:

    You have some of my favorites – coneflowers, stoke’s asters and gloriosa daisies. Love teh critters on the blooms too:)

Thanks for leaving a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.