Plants in space

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) grows wild on the farm in at least 2 wet half-shaded spots. I never thought about it much before until I saw a buttonbush last month in bloom at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. It was limbed up as a small tree and looked charming and unusual covered with round balls of flowers. The flowers were covered with bees.

(Sorry but I could not get a good picture of the entire tree; the blazing sun was right behind it.)

The little tree was as busy as a bee hive.

The flowers do have a faint sweet fragrance. I had read that they smell like
honey and it's true ~ I just checked our bottle of honey to be sure ;)

The flowers and buds remind me of a sun being orbited by planets, or a planet by its moons.

Or one could say the flowers resemble Spaceship Earth at the Epcot Center

picture from Wikipedia

although I think they look more like the cake version
(made by Jen and John, authors of the famous blog
Cake Wrecks) than the real thing.

picture from Cake Wrecks

Not only are these flowers remind me of outer space, they remind me of inner space too, specifically models of atoms. Anyway, now that I've seen what a limbed-up Buttonbush that gets enough sun looks like, I have to get one. It makes for an unique and in its own way beautiful specimen and the bees love it. I will have to see if ours are still flowering ~ they may have been overtaken by shade by now ~ and take cuttings this month. If that fails I know that the NC Botanical Garden has offered the seeds in the past, and that Niche Gardens sells it.

I am glad that the Botanical Garden brought this native into my orbit and allowed me to see it in a different light than I had before.

Fourth of July Barbeque

This past weekend felt as though we were on the bbq. The heat like being on blazing hot coals during the day, then thick smoke Saturday night. I don't know if the smoke was from the fire in Bladen County or is something more local. Just to err on the side of caution I walked down to the pastures at 11 pm to make sure our woods weren't on fire. Thankfully on Sunday morning the wind came up and the smoke dissipated.

The peppermint spray is deterring the deer so far. The culprits were the doe and yearlings twins that have been living here for over a year; my guess is that the doe lost this year's fawn and rejoined her youngsters from last year. The yearling buck looks so grown up already; he's much bigger than his mom and sister and has a sizeable rack of antlers. His mother is still the boss, however. She will nip him if he gets in her way.

I never thought I'd be such a daylily fan, but each one has their own individual loveliness. And unlike orange ditch lilies, most have the good grace not to have very much foliage.

'Beautiful Edgings'

'Hudson Valley' has huge fragrant flowers.

'Lavender Stardust'

Unknown, obtained in a trade

'Ada May Musick'

'Jedi Blue Note'

Noid I got in a trade. It's grown on me.

'Hyperion'

'Pandora's Box'

I absolutely love this daylily.

When I pulled the tag I got this:

Typical, but I'm surprised there was a tag at all, since I wanted to know what it
was. There were enough letters that a Google search turned up the name right away.

'Trahlyta'

A picture from later in the day, showing some changes in color and just as lovely
as it was in the morning. I like the combination of moody plum and vivid purple.

'Easy Ned'

'Shady Lady'

'Lavender Deal'

A beautiful fragrant daylily from Wayside. The tag was lost long ago.

Those water droplets are from the hose, not from rain. I hope we get some rain this week. All of the little bumblebees working so hard in the garden are drinking from the puddle next to the water trough. They land on the surface of the water with legs outstretched like a water bug, drink, and then fly off again. Much of the day there are half a dozen bees quenching their thirst at any given time. There's even a couple of water frogs living in the puddle too.

Painting with bright colors

Spring is a time of delicate colors and shimmering palettes of spring green, like a watercolor painting. The summer garden in a warm climate like central NC doesn't have that look of eternal spring seen in more northern climes; it's like a work in oils or pastels, bold colors thrown at the canvas and swirled together.

Monarda 'Raspberry Wine' with Buddleia 'Potter's Purple'

The Monarda creates a bold current of color in the sea of green that's the big perennial bed.

Its deep raspberry pink just glows

and it's a-buzz with activity all day long. The Carpenter Bees in particular love it.

There are swirls and eddies of 'Claire Grace' too, which from a distance looks a little dull without something bright like Phlox 'Robert Poore' to punch it up.

Up close is a different story.

I had forgotten about the Rudbeckia since it was just fuzzy leaves last year; now of course, like the Phlox, I think I need more of it! I love the warm golden color, like the glow of a late summer afternoon captured in a flower.

Good news on the pony front! We jogged her yesterday and she looks to be doing much better.