Here is Queen Anne’s Lace growing beside the steps going down to the lower deck.  Earlier in the summer, the deer ate the top out of this one, but it has grown back twice as strong.  We guard it now with a fence.

 

Queen Anne’s Lace is in the same family of plants as celery and dill and fennel.  It is easy to see the resemblance, isn’t it?  Think umbrellas with spokes.  

 

We have seen it all along the highway, tall and pretty.  I hope you see some in your travels.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

On our walk in Meeks Park last week, we resighted the Carolina Lily that we saw last year.

 

Honestly, I’ve been looking in this spot ever since we saw it the first time.  

 

I love seeing these beautiful flowers in the wild.  It feels like a special treat, just for me.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

This is the Black Gum across the road from our house.  It is always the first tree to show fall color.  Seems odd, though, in August.  

 

Look around and you may start to see other trees showing their fall colors.  It won’t be long.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Here is my Fennel in bloom.  If you think it looks a lot like dill, you’d be correct.  They are in the same family of plants:  Umbelliferae.  This family includes: anise, caraway, carrots, celery, chervil, cilantro and coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, parsley, parsnips, Queen Anne’s lace, and wild carrot.

 

The flower, which becomes the seed head, is an umbel.  Just think of an umbrella and its spokes.  That’s what these plants all have in common:  their flower heads are shaped like little umbrellas, and their seeds grow at the ends of the spokes.  

 

This is Bronze Fennel, and the feathery leaves and seeds taste just like anise.  These plants are easily 5 feet tall, and loaded with seed heads.  It is an annual, but readily reseeds itself, so we have fennel growing in almost the same spots every year.  I brought some fennel seeds with me from Virginia in 2004, and it has been growing here ever since.

 

Another benefit of the Umbelliferae:  they are host plants for the Black Swallowtails. That’s really why we grow fennel, so we can host butterflies.

 

 

HAPPY  GARDENING!!!

 

Can you believe this?  Right when I thought they wouldn’t, somebody ate my pepper plant.  You can see that they left the cayenne peppers, and just ate the leaves.

 

They didn’t touch the basil, marigolds, or lemon grass, but they sure made a mess of the pepper.

 

Oh well;  live and learn, again.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

We have finally found some plants that the deer won’t eat.  Here is my proof.  These pots spent the spring planted with dill, and when the dill went to seed, I replanted them with basil, marigolds, and one cayenne pepper plant.

 

That was a month ago, and they are all still here.  These pots are not fenced, or caged, or protected in any way.  And they haven’t been eaten…yet.

 

Around the corner to the right there is a pot of lemon grass and one of lovage, and they haven’t been eaten either…yet.

 

All these plants have something in common:  strong smell and taste.  Maybe that’s the trick:  plant strong smelling stuff, and the deer will leave them alone, and go eat your neighbors’ azaleas.

 

 

HAPPY  GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Have you ever seen zinnias like the ones at Rosalie’s?  She has this great raised bed, and for the last three years it has been exploding with zinnias, four o’clocks, and several other wildflowers, all planted from seeds.

 

We love seeing them in bloom as we near the top of Five Forks Drive.  

 

 

THANKS, ROSALIE!!!

 

The Devil’s Walking Stick trees are beginning to bloom all over the neighborhood.  I haven’t noticed any others, but they are probably all along the roadways.  They are about 8-10 feet tall, and easy to spot at 45 miles an hour.  These are on Five Forks Drive just across from the new Deer Crossing sign.  

 

The flowers are pretty to look at, but the trunks of the trees are covered in sharp spines.  Not a tree that you would plant in your yard (to mow around) but definitely an interesting tree to see and appreciate at a distance.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

We loved the rain on Saturday, but the storm that came with it broke off a few of my huge sunflowers.  

 

They were out of reach (10 feet high) so we couldn’t pick any anyway.  But when they came down, I couldn’t help myself.  I saved as many blossoms as I could, and put them in a vase in the house.  And, you know me:  I also saved some seeds to plant again next year.  

 

The flowers in the vase are real;  those two on the table are my silk summer decorations.  Hard to tell the difference.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Don’t you just LOVE Crape Myrtle?  So do I!!!  

 

Because of their long bloom period, in China they are called the “flower of one hundred days.”

 

The Crape Myrtles all over town have started blooming, and this is my favorite: lavender.  But they come in white, lavender, red, and pink.  There are several pink ones in the neighborhood, a few white ones, and the new plantings on the entrance road are blooming red.  This one is at Hughes Outdoor, right beside the steps.  Close enough that you can actually smell it.

 

I hope you see some pretty ones in your travels.

 

 

HAPPY AUGUST!!!