:: campsis radicans ::

Although my phone camera has depicted this as a rather shocking pink, this red trumpet vine or 'cow itch vine' or 'trumpet creeper' is really much more salmon red.

I spy this one on my morning walks - it is truly incredible - the number of blooms and the huge number still to come - there are just cluster upon cluster of buds in the wings.

The thing I noticed, apart from the noise of the bees busy at every available orifice, was the star shape created by the neatly-folded petals of the buds, ready to fling open at their turn. Exquisite.

Apparently, the radicans part of the name refers to the fact that this plant is so set upon world domination, even the stalks will set roots as soon as they touch the earth.  

Seems it is a plant that needs a firm hand - a bit like the wisteria, perhaps.  On the fenceline that I see this specimen, it is testament to this fact - I could not be sure which is holding up which!

:: rosa ix ::

A sunset rose for a soft Autumn sunset tonight.

:: echinopsis chamaecereus ::

Peanut cactus - courtesy of Miss P

I am really learning how my enthusiasms or curiosities emerge in clusters or phases...at times there are days in a row where the process of finding a flower and writing something about it is easy and it all happens in fast flow.

...and there are other days where the habit of creating a blog entry is rather, um, mechanical... I might just leave it at that, then, tonight ;-)

:: echeveria ::

The shiny, fat perfectly round droplet of water sitting tight in the clutches of the leaves of this echeveria is on its way to the part of the plant that needs it most. 

And is one of the things I find incredible about succulents and cacti - their ability to extract and retain as much water as possible. 

:: graptopetalum ::

Not strictly a flower...but this Easter Sunday I'm about relaxing away from the 'puta as much as poss...from the Crassula family a rather pretty, flower-looking succulent sometimes called 'ghost flower' from Miss P's garden today.

Hope you've been finding some restorative relaxing time over the weekend.

:: cosmos iii ::

Flowers evoke all kinds of memories for me and these cosmos brought a couple of them back just now...

...a very long-time local at Morere sometimes planted out a not-often used paddock, which could be seen from the highway (and from our little patch across the river)in a swathe of beautiful cosmos of all colours...such a wonderful, beautiful act from someone who seemed otherwise to be endlessly busy...

...and the pure joy of finding these particular cosmos growing seemingly wild on the side of the highway between Nuhaka and Wairoa - just before Whakakihi, I think...

...and although it was windy and raining and the highway busy with more than the occasional logging truck, I got A to stop while I gathered some seed heads of these gorgeous bright pink cosmos...that was about 5 years ago and I've still managed to keep the seed each year...

:: antirrhinum ::

Another something that has bounced up out of an area of the garden without any help or nurturing from us...another fun discovery.  These are, of course, snapdragons, taking their name from looking a bit like a dragon's face, sometimes called dragon flowers, too. Do you remember squeezing them and it was like a frilly mouth snapping open?

Interestingly the botanical name, antirrhinum, comes from the Greek words 'anti', meaning 'like', 'rhis', meaning 'nose' and 'inus', meaning 'of',which altogether gives the meaning 'like a nose' - I've been looking at the flower a bit sideways trying to figure that one out...

I've always just thought of them as pretty bedding flowers and nice to cut for inside, but apparently a green dye is extracted from the flowers, in some places the seed is pressed to release an edible oil and in Russia, the leaves and flowers are useful for their anti-inflammatory properties.

:: geranium ii ::

The deep, rich red of this velvety climbing geranium is one of my favourite colours and it feels like the perfect flower today in what is a completely full and rich day of activity.  

The weather has gone ballistic from rain and wind to warm and balmy with sunshine to now a crazy storm of heavy rain, thunder and wind, wind, wind! 

The moon is full today and in the Northern Hemisphere it is Springtime, bringing with it the celebrations of Easter...

...something I definitely can't quite get my head around - a Springtime rite in our Autumn.  While we have pumpkins, corn and a multitude of fruit and vegetables ripening and are busy harvesting, our hens moulting and not producing any eggs, somehow we are supposed to celebrate rebirth and Spring themes with bunnies and ...eggs!

So this weekend as well as remembering the Christian festival of Easter, we will also be harvesting pumpkins and corn, making a pumpkin pie (because I've never made one before!) and some raw chocolate , ahem, Easter bark!

:: aster ii ::

When I took this photo a few weeks ago, the asters were newly bursting into bloom with a fresh radiance that now, is a little lacking.

What strikes me most about this beautiful flower are the layers - of sepals, which are almost petal-like, that make up the calyx, and the gradation of tones of green - very pleasing to my eye :-)

As well, the layers and layers of petals that make the corolla - so many that the aster flower looks almost 'feathery' to me.

:: verbena x hybrida ::

A day of fasting today...and I'm going to make the blog post a fast as well... ;-)

:: sedum ii ::

As the season deepens, so does the colour of the sedum by the front steps. No bees on the flowers  by the time I got there - but the warmth glowing out from each cluster of tiny flowers struck me.

:: cynara scolymus ::

 I think we are now in the tail-end of the golden weather before the cold sets in - an incredible 30 degrees at our place most of today (and yesterday, too).  We are soaking up all that loveliness and watching all the Summery plants finishing up their cycles. 

These beautiful artichokes - the 'purple de jesi' kind have been 'giving' since planting in Spring.

I've put them in as a perennial edible that's beautiful and gives shelter (or will, eventually!) to other plants along the South-western part of our front garden. 

In this, their first year, we've not eaten from them yet - just felt to let them grow through the whole season to seed stage - and what a reward it is to see this truly stunning plant in flower. 

Thank you, artichokes, for your generosity!

:: crocosmia ::

I like to learn new things - I used that app to identify this very common and quite invasive flower that pops up towards the end of Summer.  Today the warmth has been enveloping in a very welcome way as we gently slide on into the Winter months now...and this monbretia or crocosmia is a perfect representation to me of today's warmth...

:: amaranthus caudatus ::

 I know of this flower as 'love-lies-bleeding', which sounds rather dire and it is also known as pendant amaranth, tassel flower, velvet flower, foxtail amaranth and quilete.

The beautiful red colour of the florets is from a high concentration of betacyanin and amazingly make thousands of seeds, which, along with the leaves are edible, feeding lots of people in places like India and South America.

The botanical name originates from the Medieval Latin caudatus for 'tailed' or 'elongated/lengthened/extended'...and as the photo below shows - the tails certainly are long and end up lying, bleeding on the ground...

 I've been patiently, well, fairly patiently waiting for this very showy plant to get up a head of steam and bush out a bit - although I think I have left my run a bit too late for this climate, as our first frost happened last weekend, which seems really much too early, don't you think?

:: rosa viii ::

another rosie beauty this morning on our walk...

:: rosa vii ::

there hasn't been a rose for awhile...I do admire the lovely soft, buttery nature of this voluptous specimen - in colour and texture - it looks casually thrown-together, just so - it was treasure to behold while walking Miss Olive...

:: rhododendron vireya ii ::

Oooh! I learnt something tonight! I like that!

Richard W and Tracey Y had both suggested getting an app to help identify flowers a wee while back and I'd not had occasion to need one until tonight...I had taken this photo in the weekend and out of context I'd become completely stumped as to what it was.  

Enter 'LikeThat Garden' App and, hey, presto, problem solved - and it made me laugh, because it was just another variety of the vireya rhododendron I'd posted two days ago!!

I'm still not exactly certain of the variety - but I do know for sure it is a rhodo of the vireya kind.

A pretty cool app if knowing what plants are is your thing.  Only hitch seemed to be the app wants a live plant in front of it, but I tested it with viewing this flower as a capture in an e-mail and it matched it from that kind of quality - not bad, huh?

:: hibiscus ::

:: rhododendron ::

At the aged care facility where we visited Nana Joy, the gardens are a visual delight - loads of dark green foliage, shiny and lush with hot, bright tropical colours bursting out at every turn - like these beautiful Vireya Rhododendron. I was amazed at the range of beautiful tropical flora and realised just how different the climate is from where we now live. 

It was lovely to appreciate the difference.

My eyes were drawn heavenwards by a couple of tui twittering melodically high above in the boughs of the half a dozen huge, old pohutukawa trees. Reaching up and beyond the third storey of the largest building they tower over all, creating a shady micro-climate for the earthly delights nestled below. Just beautiful and no grass to be seen ie, no noisy mowing to be done, either :-)

It was great to visit with Nana Joy and even though she wasn't up to much, we shared stories, grapes and chocolate brownie morsels very happily for a lovely spell.

Taking a journey is a wonderful way to look at the world differently for a moment and be reminded all at the same time that, actually, I didn't need to go roaming to see things differently at all - just change my perception of what is in front of me right here at home.  I'm thinking of a quote by Marcel Proust:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes"

The revelation in itself was refreshing.

:: centaurea cyanus ii ::

And finally here is a lovely blue version of the cornflower...sigh!

Guess what my 99 year old Nana's favourite colour is?  Yes, the colour of her eyes - not quite an Elizabeth Taylor violet blue, but a very pretty blue, none-the-less.  I always think of Nana when I'm around blue-hued objects - colour is a very strong sense for me. Oh - and smell, too - my olfactory sense can pull me right to a memory of a time where I last smelt whatever it was as if I was right there again...you too? Weird, huh.

Today we are visiting Nana - it is her 100th year - which seems fantastical to me - thinking of all the things that have happened in her lifetime, all the experiences, places she's been, people she's met, lived with, loved, cared for, cooked for. All the changes that have happened in this world around her...1916 was a completely different animal.  It is actually a favourite era of mine when thinking of art and innovation.  It seemed there was a crazy burst of wonderful creativity going on in the years just before WW1 and during.

 Being resourceful and writing this ahead of time, knowing Saturday is a fully-booked day, I will report on our visit on tomorrow evening....

:: satureja hortensis ::

This might be the tiniest flower I've come across so far...the grey green GIANT leaf in the background, which is TOUCHING this spray of Summer Savoury is just an ordinary sage leaf! The little flowers are smaller than thyme flowers as another indication of size.

A gift from another gardening friend, who handed over these three incredibly tiny, yet sturdy wee seedlings in a punnet. I thought "these will never get anywhere in my little jungle". But, of course, they have!

Summer savoury is delicious with all sorts of meatiness(apparently)...and also BEANS - that's more like it for me! And, apparently, it helps to alleviate the gas from the legume family - so I will definitely be drying it to try for that purpose!!

 One amusing side is that Summer Savoury is a main ingredient in an American seasoning called 'herbes de Provence', which I have seen in quite a few recipes and been ignorant of exactly what this was...just made me giggle, for some reason...too lazy to google it, but hey, the universe eventually brings the answer to me...LOL! (or not!)

:: helianthus iv ::

The stages of flowers bursting forth are many  - this sunflower is in those early stages - it really is beautiful to witness what goes on - and the amazing amount of flower and petals that all unfurl from such a tight and tiny space - reminds me of an Anais Nin quote:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

I feel a bit like how the sunflower looks today - not really wanting to look out at the world too much - maybe tomorrow it'll all feel too tight and I'll burst right out again!

:: sedum ::

Sedum Autumn Joy, thank you Jo A - I know you didn't like it so much, but it is something I and the bees look forward to each Autumn here...plus...it goes with the house! LOL!

:: dianthus caryophyllus ::

I know of this as a carnation and also it is called 'clove pink', after it's musky clove-like smell, I presume. It is a species of dianthus, which clears that conundrum up for me as I knew they were similar...

...dianthus has a very lovely meaning: 'heavenly flower', after the Greek divine 'dios' and flower 'anthos'.

There are a couple of stories about how carnations arrived on this earthly plane - one pretty gruesome - the spurned goddess Diana ripping the eyeballs out of poor lad who turned her down and carnations popping up where the eyeballs fell on the earth!

The other telling of Mary weeping after Jesus and carnations springing up where her tears landed.

Carnations have a long and enduring history, touching many people and cultures for many reasons - celebrations and defiance, mostly and mens' buttonholes!

In our garden, I appreciate their persistence through the frost and snow, even - carnations regenerate the next Spring quite happily with not too much effort at all - so far!

I'd not seen a variagated carnation before and was rather delighted when this one came out the other day.

:: nigella damascena ::

I've been thinking more about my 99 years old Nana and her gardens.  I remember her having love-in-a-mist growing here and there and being fascinated by the delicate and ethereal form of this pretty flower and by it's beautiful, romantic-sounding common name...sigh...lovely!

:: coreopsis ::

This is a little bit of sunshine and happy memories from my childhood...

...being at my Nana's elbow making our way around the garden 'at the bach', doing the deadheading...

...bright sun beating down hot on our sunhatted heads...

...brilliantly-coloured flowers all along the driveway - all easycare perennials of one sort or another...geraniums, pelargoniums, agapanthus, hydrangea and...coreopsis...

which made golden sunny yellow head after golden sunny yellow head of flowers...

...hundreds and thousands of them...or at least that's how it seemed to me as a child...

In our garden, this wonderful butterfly-attractant is only just establishing - I would really love there to be giant clumps of it radiating it's sunny goodness out to the world.

Next weekend we visit Nana Joy, who is now 99... wonder what delightful memories she might dig up for us?

:: petunia ii ::

needing a little help in how to capture a decent image of a red bloom...ideas?

'Petunia' sounds like she'd be a fairly prim and proper kind of a character, don't you think? And not one that'd smoke...cigarettes (!), for heaven's sake!  Quelle horreur!

But the name Petunia comes from a French dialect word for tobacco - 'petun'! 

As I read further I could see the association as the petunia is from the solanaceae family which includes among its members the potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and deadly nightshade, the tobacco plant.

And the petunia flower does have a similar look to the ornamental tobacco or nicotiana flower.

What I would like to know is how to photograph these saturated, intensely-red coloured types of flowers...? 

Does anyone have tips for me? 

Finding it very vexing...

:: fuchsia ii ::

 Inheriting a garden is a process of discovery and we have recently begun watering a strip of garden under the front, South-facing side of the house, previously dry as it is in a 'rain shadow'.

There has always been a fairly good-sized fuchsia plant there but now there is a string of different little fuchsia plants springing up out of the soil - what a surprise and a delight!

Soon we might have a whole row of mini ballerinas bobbing in the breeze (who am I kidding? It's a crazy Southerly that BLASTS Antarctic air at that part of the house!).
The colour fuchsia is described as a reddish purple and named after this flower...because of the colour. It was created in 1859 by a French chemist the same year another dye was named magenta.  And later on this synthetic fuchsia dye was renamed as magenta.
On computer and TV screens they are exactly the same colour made from full strength blue and red lights combined. But in printing for example, the two vary and fuchsia is considered more purplish while magenta is considered more reddish.

:: dahlia vi ::

Skirting around the front garden this evening, trying to avoid the crazy wind that seems to ALWAYS be following me as soon as I want to take a photo!

We have lots of little dahlia bushes, which have all grown up this Summer from tiny seedling plants from Awapuni Nurseries - the newspaper ones in the supermarket - really good value...this is one of these.

And don't you love finding a perfectly fat, furry bumblebee in the middle of its business?

:: symphytum ::

 Today the weather cheered finally in the afternoon and I'm quite looking forward to our promised little heatwave, after a 20 degree dip from the lofty highs of last weekend.  And then I think I might have slightly depressed myself thinking too much about how long the weather is cold and grey here in the Wintertime...

...so, like a dog, I shook all that doom off and headed out into the garden, where I ALWAYS feel a lot better really quickly!

 The comfrey needed cutting back - it is possible to harvest it multiple times from about October to May, climate depending - it is a phenomenal plant, really...

...activate compost with its large amount of fibre plus green nitrogen for extra heat in the heap, too...

...make a comfrey 'tea' - not a tea and scones type of tea - a slimy, dark, nutrient-rich compost tea for feeding the garden...

...use it as a mulch - huge leaves in great quantity that breakdown quickly...

...planted around the drip line of fruit trees is proven to improve the nutrient-quality of the soil as it has such deep roots that mine up not-usually-available nutrients from far below the surface such as potassium...

Also known as 'knitbone', comfrey has been used to help bone break wounds heal, skin to heal (contains allantoin which helps reduce inflammation), sprains, bruises, arthritis, rheumatism and ligament damage...

In our garden comfrey is utilised in all the ways above as well as feed for our hens,  bees and bumblebees...

...over and above all of that, the flowers really are very pretty!

:: curcurbita pepo ::

 Difficult to gather a sense of scale from a photo like this, suffice to say this exuberant example of a female zucchini flower of the costasta romanesco variety is the size of a dinner plate across!

 Zucchini were developed in Italy, hence the name (Zucca, meaning pumpkin plus -ina, meaning little).  I much prefer the name 'zucchini' and was rather pleased to note that 'courgette' is merely the French word for...zucchini!

Deep inside this female (!) flower a bee is working its magic.

What we eat is really the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower - the male flowers are a bit smaller and grow on long stems off the main stem of the plant.  Both flowers are edible and often are steamed, sauteed or stuffed and baked, dipped in tempura batter and fried,...something to try.