Due to some difficulties with my laptop all of today's photos were taken with my iPhone 4S, and cropped using Photoshop Express. As a purely amateur photographer without any photo training, I fumbled my way through the software and am pleased with the results. (The iPhone camera isn't too shabby, either.)
So what is blooming at my house in upstate NY, near Johnson City/Binghamton?
Due to my schedule, I took these photos Sunday, but all of these plants are in bloom this morning.
Overnight, we had at least two thunderstorms and some rain. We've been getting rain since my July post and I am grateful, although Elmira, NY (about an hour west of us) was hit with a small tornado, which still caused enough damage.
A red dahlia. There is a story behind this dahlia - the original tubers were given to me some 20 years ago by a friend and co worker who had cancer. Sadly, she passed, but we have grown this dahlia every year since. Last year it put out very few tubers
A hisbiscus. This plant was accidentally "weeded" last summer and never recovered, never bloomed. But this year, it is back, just as strong as ever. There is a story behind this plant too, which was planted in honor of a late aunt I loved dearly. She loved hisbiscuses.
And finally, you can be pleasantly surprised by the unexpected. Every year we decorate the front of our house with ears of dried ornamental corn. (No, we don't grow it - we usually get it at a local farmers market.) The squirrels ate ours this past fall, but one kernel must have fallen. We let it grow, and it is now blooming for us. One tiny corn is now starting to peak out with a few tassels.
What's blooming in your garden today?
I love the colour of the dahlia, but I especially love the story behind it and your hibiscus. I have a leopard lily that came from my flatmate. She passed away in her early thirties, and I didn't have a garden at the time, but she gave the lily to a mutual friend, who passed it on to me. Now I have shared it with my brother and another friend, and whenever I see it, in any of our gardens, I think of Jillayne.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story. I wonder how many of us flower gardeners have similar stories of "memory flowers". It would be worth blogging about. Maybe I will.....
DeleteGorgeous! I'm also impressed with the phone pictures.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI love plants with stories attached to them. So many plants in my garden came from someone special, and others remind me of another garden I worked in and gleaned seeds, cuttings, etc. My mom gave me acacia and cherry trees, which will always remind me of her.
ReplyDeleteI have a memory African violet. It was my grandmother's, and she gave it to me when she entered a nursing home. She died 6 years ago, but the violet lives on. It grows prolifically, and I've had to separate it a few times, so many other people now have pieces of Grandna's violet too.
ReplyDeleteThe dahlia and hibiscus are lovely, and how funny about the corn! My spearmint and lemon thyme are in full bloom too.
I think those plants with sentimental value make a garden more than just flowers and shrubs, lovely post :-)
ReplyDelete