Flower Friday Again

There's still time for Flower Friday so our secretary is taking over our blog. Again. Sigh.

This is a calla lily on top of beebalm. Calla lilies have pretty speckled leaves. They aren't supposed to be hardy here in Northern Virginia, but Dad planted them very deep and they've now been in the ground at least five years and have come back and bloomed every year.


Here are some pale specimens of purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).

More calla liles

And here's what happens to some of our lovely calla lilies--Japanese beetle damage. Mom and Dad don't use any chemicals in our garden, so they just pick off the pesky voracious beetles as best they can. I think we should close the fast food restaurant (bird feeders) and put the birds to work eating the beetles!

Daylilies

With all due respect to the Big Piney Woods Cats who started Flower Friday, I think I'm getting a little tired of being upstaged by flowers. This is supposed to be a CAT BLOG, so I'm going to insist on at least one photo of ME. Here I am making the world safer from a sucker upper machine. It can't do its sucking without being plugged into the wall outlet. I have conquered the evil machine!

~Jake

Flower Friday

The Big Piney Woods Cats started something called Flower Friday so we thought that we would indulge Mom and show some of her garden flowers. These are some photos she took a couple of days ago early in the morning before she went to work. It had rained the night before.

This is beebalm (Monarda didyma) with Shasta daisy. Beebalm is native to the area and is very attractive to hummingbirds. It is in the mint family and that sometimes means trouble, but Mom doesn't find it nearly as aggressive as the purple-pink wild bergamot (M. fistulosa) that she also has.


Mom likes vines a lot and the clematis by the deck is still blooming fairly well. It started blooming in April.





The daylily (Hemerocallis) Stella d'Oro shone brightly in the early morning light.

Happy Flower Friday!

~J&B