Flowers

Flowers

 

Today’s photos of nasturtiums, meadowsweet, zucchini and marigolds were taken in my yard a couple of days ago.  in 2006 a friend gave me some nasturtium seeds that he had collected from his plants and I have been saving seeds every year since.  Nasturtiums are very prolific and usually bloom from late July to the first heavy frost.  The bright yellow and orange flowers add colour and are excellent for attracting bees.

 

Speaking of bees, there are few bumble bees in this part of the island this year.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Where do you live?

 

My granddaughter planted marigolds, impatiens and pansies in the garden I made for her.  The flowers are doing very well.  My grandson planted potatoes, carrots, zucchini and cucumbers in the plot I prepared for him.  It won’t be long before he will be eating the zucchini bread he requested.

 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to share with family and friends.

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Garden 4

Garden 4August 17, 2015

On Monday evening I walked around my yard and made a few more photos.

The first two photo show flowers of meadowsweet, which grows wild all around here. It actually makes a good hedge between my gardens and the trees.

I've been planting nasturtiums since the first year I moved into this house and collect seeds every fall. They are very prolific and bloom from late July through to the first heavy frost.

Asters have started to bloom around my yard - the variety that grows here are late summer and fall bloomers.  A sign that our short summer is beginning to fade.

I showed photos of the golden marguerites previously but I photograph them over and over. The bright yellow blooms also last from July through to a heavy frost.

Feel free to share with family and friends.

You can view more of my photos on my web site and Facebook Pages:

• K. Bruce Lane Photography
• K. Bruce Lane Facebook
• K. Bruce Lane Photography Facebook

Photos of the Day are for sale as:

• Stock Photographs
• Photographic Prints and Enlargements
• Slide Shows

Meadowsweet

Another plant that is flowering around here at the end of August is meadowsweet . The blooms are pinkish-white and not too spectacular until you look very closely and observe the white petals, light pink stamens and deep pink and green centres. These are very common and normally I let them grow wild, but weed them from my flower and vegetable gardens.

Meadowsweet has many medicinal uses, in fact it was the main ingredient in the first forms of aspirin. Some native Americans used to make a herbal tea from this plant, which some web sites call an herb. I think the species growing around here is Spiraea latifolia which has less of the salicylic acid, one of its main medicinal compounds. If anyone on this list knows more about the medical uses of this particular variety of meadowsweet, please let me know.

I started using extension tubes, which I use to make macro images, but with a slight breeze moving the plants, it was near impossible to capture a view that was in focus. Instead, I used my 28-80 mm zoom lens to get as close as possible, then cropped them to show you the very close views.