This is an Asian Lily spotted today in the garden shop at Lowe’s. We were there for some potting soil and to get some rat control products (the little vermin have been spotted in the back yard from time to time). While we were there we also got some marigolds, a zucchini starter sprout and a couple of other garden supplies.
I love the lighting on this lily. Click on the picture for a larger view.
Earlier today we were out doing errands and stopped at Zamperini Field in Torrance to see the EAA’s “Aluminum Overcast,” a restored WW2 B-17 (like the Memphis Belle). What a beauty! Verna got this shot of this magnificent plane when it was on short final approach to TOA runway 11L.
I took some short videos of the event and spliced them together in the 90-second video below.
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 night we heard Bear start to make a fuss over something outside. We got up and looked and found this little guy halfway up the utility pole looking down at us. Bear wanted to play with it – hard. I couldn’t bring myself to run it off with the pellet gun when I saw it the other morning. Just look at that face.
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.
