Flowercents: Zinnia

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Still Blooming

September is one of my favorite times of the year and while there are a lot less flowers blooming in my yard, I still found quite a few. The dahlias and zinnias are especially blooming well now. I decided to dig up my beloved Hansa roses, which makes me a little sad. The leaves have been plagued with a mysterious problem for three years in a row, and this year they had black-spot as well so they were looking less than lovely, to say the least. They had also outgrown their space. I am trying to save a small section of it that looked healthy and will see if that carries over the leaf problem or not.

Last year I grew two tomato plants from seed that I had saved from store bought grape tomatoes, and they all grew and tasted like the original tomatoes. Since I still had a few seeds left, I grew them again this year. While one of the plants produced grape tomatoes, the other one produced larger tomatoes. They are pretty tasteless so I am saving them for recipes instead of fresh eating. I knew that I was taking a chance on that hybrid seed coming true but it is fun to experiment.

Dahlia 'Blue Boy"

Dahlia Crazy Love

Figaro Dahlia grown from seed

Grape tomatoes

Balloon flower

Bleeding Heart 'luxuriant'

Chrysanthemum

Cosmos and Sedum

Feverfew

Hibiscus

Hollyhock

Soraya Sunflower, the blooms are all small now

Morning Glory

Perennial Sunflower

Persicaria

Russian Sage, not sure what's in the back

Sedum

Spirea

Zinnia

Oliver with Chester in the background

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

September Garden and a New Kitten

September is one of my favourite months of the year, and while the garden is certainly looking less colourful, there are still things worthy of a photo or two. It is also a great time of the year to visit your local nursery for finding bargain plants. The first photo is one of my bargain finds and it is called Malva sylvestris 'braveheart' and I just love the name. Next is a flower from my hibiscus shrub that I thought was dead this spring but obviously wasn't, and another hibiscus photo that I took at my local nursery. The dahlia is also a bargain plant that I bought earlier this summer, and it just recently started blooming. It came without a name but I think it will be one of my favourites. The hydrangea blooms always looks so nice, even though the flowers are basically dead. Wouldn't it be nice if all spent flowers looked this pretty? This is the first time I have ever been able to grow zinnias past the seedling stage. I don't know if it was our drier spring & summer or the fact that the slugs and snails didn't find them this year that made the difference. My castor plants are still growing, and as you can might be able to see, they are taller than my tall sunflowers now. It is a zone 10 plant so it won't survive our winter but I might save some seeds. In other news we adopted a new kitten! His name is Chester and he has added a lot of love & laughter to our home, not to mention trouble. Chester loves to sit on the computer keyboard and turn off the monitor and do all sorts of other things that make life interesting. Our older cat Tiger is not very happy with this new intruder, but I hope she will adjust eventually.