Tree color was pretty this year in Wisconsin, but what really surprised me was the color on a couple of our own trees/bushes here.

Labels: Plants, This Boring Life

One time I called them the French Poodles of flowers. I thought they were absurd because the blooms were so huge they couldn't be supported by their stems. But after seeing them bloom en masse at various botanical gardens and realizing they didn't only come in magenta or white, but all shades inbetween with even creams, lemons, butters and corals, I grew to like them.

OK, so I am still craving them because we don't have any of our own (they take up so much room that we really don't have). This has been a really spectacular year for peonies around Madison, so I'm going through this really horrible peony envy.

Tonight, I succumbed to googling for peony porn on the web.

What have I become?

But what's up with this one? Weird genetics going on there.

Labels: Plants

Haven't felt good the past few days or so. Ate some Ramen with a bad spice and it gave me bad heartburn. Haven't been able to sleep much at night, tired during the day. No time for anything.

Had a dream the other night that I was talking to a man with the same last name as mine. I was trying to find out if he lived in England (which is most likely where any relative on that side would be, but I'd have to go back many generations since my granddad's brother didn't have kids), but I must have woken up before I got an answer.

I uploaded a video Stan took of our amazing blooming orchid cactus to YouTube. I posted it over at Stan's blog. Now that I know how YouTube works, I'll have to start making movies of our animals to bore everyone with, like in the old days when people showed you slide shows after dinner of their trips out west.

Labels: Dreams, Plants, This Boring Life

Everyone might want to have Morel Mushrooms growing in their own back yards, and we have it. There are only three of them to be found, and perhaps there may be a few more hiding in the flowers too. If there are more we may not find them easily, and with the dry spring morels may be harder to find anyway.

For a few years going back about five years we tried to plant some morel spores on the weed elm tree. We thought this tree would be cut down soon and it was two years ago, so if morels are showing up this year the root system of this tree must have finally died. We used the same process on our apple tree a few years before it died and had only two morel mushrooms grow after that tree died.

The method was to rinse off morel mushrooms we bought to eat and save the water from the washing. The water containing spores was then dumped out at the base of these trees while the trees were still alive. Then when the trees die the morels show up in the shaded areas where the tree roots were running.

There's not much to eat but it makes for a great photo.

Labels: Plants

OK, so I subscribe to groups and catalogues that unabashedly post photographs of protruding stamens and pistils. I admit it, I'm sort of addicted. So I got this online catalogue today and really couldn't believe my eyes. ARE THEY REALLY THESE COLORS?

Caution, the following link may not be suitable for people who do not appreciate flowers or gardening.
Hot Daylilies

I want to...grow them...so badly.

Labels: Plants

Since I probably won't be around for a while for the next few weeks, here is a gallery of images I shot today of the Coleuses from 2006 that'll keep you amused, or bored, for the time I am gone. Some of the lighting isn't that great because they were shot inside. Still, it gives a good idea of the varieties of styles we grew this year.

Labels: Plants

Stan, Tim and I went to a Pug Hug held at Token Creek yesterday morning. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera. It was sitting there with my stuff, ready to take, but I forgot it. So, no pug pictures. Instead, here's a picture of my favorite coleus from the summer. We've brought all the plants in for the winter now. Because of some unexpected bad weather in May this year, most of the ones that did winter over from the previous years (some were several years old) didn't make it. We planted those in the ground, and in the meantime acquired replacement Coleus over the course of the summer. Those we potted in pots and hope to winter over as many as we can this year. We will not put them out until June of 2007. There were many beautiful ones, unfortunately, my favorite one from 2005 didn't make it. The one in the picture is a new one we got this year. It started out as sort of plain light green with a marroon stem/center, but as it matured, it turned into an amazing greenish gold/yellow with PURPLE stems and centers. I hope this one survives. Click the picture to see it a bit larger.

Labels: Plants