No, this is not going to be a regular topic, because c’mon, I’m a guy! Mostly it’s to dump a large number of images stacking up in the blog folder, but also to tip my hat at the Alliterative Al. These have accumulated over a few months now, and while I could save them for the grey winter months, I also want them gone before then, but I don’t want to just discard them. I know, it’s like inviting you over just to feed you leftovers…
Back in the spring, I found a delphinium variety at a local greenhouse with a great color palette, immediately buying the plant when I determined that it was a perennial (I’m not much for buying plants that will only last the spring or summer.) When it blossomed, the flowers were this remarkable color, but unfortunately it always bloomed at the top of inadequate, tiny stalks, and either the rain or just the wind catching the greater surface area of the flowers caused them to bend over and break within a day of opening. We’ll have to see if it becomes any hardier next year.
The Girlfriend purchased a pair of hosta plants a few years back, which did okay but didn’t thrive. They were down along the fenceline, and I had to transplant them into pots temporarily in order to remove a section of fence and get a large shed into the yard. There they remained for close to a year, since the shed would have blocked their original location and we never decided on a new spot, and despite having just enough soil to house the roots, they thrived this year, blooming for the first time, so I naturally did a few shots up close. I have to note that they were also a favorite hiding spot of the green treefrogs, who almost perfectly matched the colors (of the leaves, not of the flowers, duh.)
They’re in bigger pots with adequate soil now, by the way…
On an outing a few weeks back, I came across a pair of wildflowers that make occasional appearances in the region.
These plants go by a wide variety of common names, so I’m going to arbitrarily select orange jewelweed, but the scientific name is always the same and that’s Impatiens capensis – doesn’t trip off the tongue as easily, I know. They tend to grow with a single blossom peeking out from a vine climbing other plants, a bare spot of orange among expanses of green, so you’re not going to do any wide landscape shots featuring this species. Or the next, either.
This one also has a variety of common names, with Asiatic dayflower probably being the most distinct even though mouse ears is the most descriptive, though much harder to find in an internet search – Commelina communis pins it down better. They appear to be ever-so-slightly more prolific, in that you can occasionally find two or three in reasonable proximity, as seen here. Oh, you missed it? Yeah, that blue blur in the lower portion of the frame is another, much closer to the camera and well out of focus. By the way, the flower only lasts a day, so this is lucky timing, and one of the reasons you might not see many.
I have no idea what this is – it was just growing wild from a pot on the back deck that holds four o’clocks and morning glories, some kind of weed. The diameter is smaller than a pencil – I was just going in with the macro lens because I could.
When I got the seed packet, I was pretty certain it advertised a variety of morning glories, though we only got this one color – which I’m cool with, mind you. As Hurricane Laura passed as close as it was going to get to central NC, all we got was a bit of much-needed rain, and this is how I documented it. But let’s have a variation from earlier, that I played around with.
I’ve talked about channel clipping many times before, so this is simply one of the same blossoms in just the blue channel. Can’t have everything be vividly-colored, can we?
And finally, our latest, a pair of quick finds at Mason Farm Biological Reserve.
I have no idea what this is – some kind of tall weed growing haylike in one of the open fields, but the tiny splash of color at the top attracted my attention, though admittedly, I’m looking for bugs when I go in this close. I went a little fartsy with them anyway despite this glaring lack of real photo subjects.
And this assault on color sense occurred when I stopped to photograph the purple wildflower and discovered the sweat bee inside. I spent far too much time trying to identify both, but have found no matching images of the flower and don’t have enough details from the sweat bee – the best I’ll say is that it’s from the Subfamily Halictinae. Next time I’ll demand that it identify itself.
Okay, that cleared out a few. Now back to our regularly weird programming.
BREAKING VIEWS: All of that was prepared on Thursday, to post early Friday, when I noticed that The Girlfriend’s trumpet flower had opened and was at peak – this doesn’t last very long, so I made sure to get a photo as dusk was falling. Of course, it belongs here, so this is the absolute latest flower. Unless I see something later tonight (it’s still Thursday)…
