Behold a New Poppy, Thanks to the Bees!

"Munstead" English lavender is in bloom in a drift across the front of one of my raised beds. I've yet to do anything terribly crafty or delicious with my lavender, but I'm open to any ideas! I've read that lavender induces delta waves of sleep on an EEG and its smell alone can replace sleeping pills. My deep-seated lavender-memory is from university days, when I tried to mask the smell of cadavers with a lab coat steeped in lavender essential oil. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but later I had some creepy lavender flashbacks.

Lily "Cote d'Azur" is a great little pink lily. Most impressively, I started with one plant and now I seem to have them all over my yard. Lilies are so amazingly hardy and resistant to my division techniques, which often result in lily beheadings.

I'm really excited about this new garden event: Behold the purple poppy (A).

Then, behold the pink and mauve poppy (B).

Take a bee that likes purple and pink poppies and you have: Pink and Purple Poppy (A+B=C). This is my second year of growing Papaver somniferum and I find this little genetic shuffle rather neat! I 'll be taking seeds from this one and spreading them around.

Pink poppies and blue cornflowers. Both self-seeded. What a pair!

The flowerbed alongside the driveway contains some flourishing perennials and a rose that survived my harsh pruning this spring. In fact, I think it looks pretty good!

Orchid and Baobab Update

Here's an unknown type of Dendrobium (?spathulatum), in full bloom with 4 spikes. This is the most flowers it's ever had. This is the biggest orchid I grow and it needs to be repotted after these blooms are done.

Here's a picture of my little 4 year-old baobab bonsai, which just starting growing leaves again this past month. It's very happy in its hot and sunny windowsill after spending the winter dormant period in the basement. After this picture, I pruned all the growing stems back to only one leaf node, to promote further branching. I'll take another picture when it starts looking bushy.

Delphinium Glory

The Pacific Giant series Delphiniums are in glorious bloom. They are definitely a show-stopper, the most striking blooms since the tulips in springtime. Mine were grown from seed and these plants are 2 to 3 years old. The key to placement of delphiniums is to ensure the bottom two feet of the plants are shielded from view. They have unsightly bottoms and need some shorter perennials at their feet.

The light blue blooms are called "Summer Skies". Clearly so! These flowers look especially good for weathering a hail storm last weekend.

This is "Blue Bird". I bought these seeds from Swallowtail Garden seeds, who has a nice selection of delphiniums.

Papaver somniferum pink and mauve blooms. So pretty! I just love these poppies.

A lovely trio of white Campanula persicifolia, pink Papaver somniferum, and pacific giant delphiniums.

Digitalis x mertonensis, the Strawberry foxglove, grows among other perennials in the raised bed. I understand that D. mertonensis is actually a hybrid of D. purpurea and D. grandiflora, both of which I also grow. D. purpurea is a biennial, producing foliage in the first year and flowers in the second. D. grandiflora, on the other hand, produces yellow flowers and is perennial, producing flowers reliably every year.

I have noticed that D. mertonensis has unique foliage with large dark green leaves with toothed edges. I wasn't sure which digitalis was which until I noticed that they can be distinguished from their leaves. Now I'm interested to see how long D. x mertonensis lives.