April 2007

The Plant Answers garden website says the pansy is a delicate looking flower often with a “face.” The pansy is quite durable and a “flower for all seasons.” Pansies are growing in gardens during the winter in the South or Southwest and during the summer in the North. The fragrant and edible blooms are desirable in gardens. Pansy popularity increases possible due to its ease of growing. Whether grown from seed or bedding plants, pansies are relatively disease and pest free blooming prolifically for the gardener’s enjoyment.

“Blue Pansy” is also the common name of an oriental butterfly. I took this last weekend at Lowe’s garden shop. Click for a bigger view.

This photo of an Easter Lily is unretouched other than cropping and resizing. A sunbeam coming through the window over the staircase hit this flower at just the right angle and place to make it look as though the inside of the flower was producing the light.

Last week while shopping for colorful flowers to accent our yard and patio, I saw this interesting flower. The name of this variety is Fox Gloves. (Click on the picture for big.)

This excerpt is from About:Landscaping . . .

According to the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, “The name foxglove is from the old English name “foxes glofa.” It comes from an old myth that foxes must have used the flowers to magically sheath their paws as they stealthily made their nocturnal raids into the poultry yards of rural folk. The association is natural for the foxgloves grew on the wooded hillside slopes that foxes chose for their dens.”

The scientific genus name also refers to the fact that foxglove flowers are just about the right size for you to slip your fingers into them, as the Latin, digitalis literally translates, “measuring a finger’s breadth.”

As with many poisonous plants, foxglove was traditionally used by expert herbalists for medicinal purposes. Even today, drugs made from foxglove plants are used to strengthen the heart and regulate heartbeat.

This is one of the “Hen and Chicks” variety of echeveria, a succulent native to the southwest. Hen and Chicks is a stemless rosette that produces bright orange and yellow flowers spring through summer. Depending on the climate, they can also bloom again in the fall.

I took this shot using my old Canon A510 camera. These are currently growing in a hanging basket next to the patio fence. Click for a larger view.

The lilies opened right on cue this week. I have three on it now and more coming.