The Pea Family Showed Up This Week

The Pea Family Showed Up This Week

perennials vegetable garden

I was standing out in the garden and noticed I was surrounded by blooms from the pea family of plants.

My initial thought was, "oh good, the Leguminosae family has arrived. Oh wait, not Leguminosae like I learned in college, now it's Fabaceae. Leguminosae, Fabaceae, does it really matter-a?

Maybe not.

What matters is their blooms have shown up in my garden.

The common peas, Pisum sativum,

In the right light...

In the right light...

perennials

In the right light...

I just like how this picture came out.

So I'm sharing it...

Foxglove - A sign of garden fairy activity in the garden

Foxglove - A sign of garden fairy activity in the garden

fairies perennials

Digitalis grandiflora

Dear Hortense,

Do you have foxglove growing in your garden?

I have large yellow-flowered foxglove, Digitalis grandiflora, growing in my garden.  It's right in the middle of Plopper's Field, my perennial border where I carefully plop new plants in any spot that looks open.

I do, of course, sometimes, if I think about it, consider what's growing around the bare spot

Gillyflowers in bloom

Gillyflowers in bloom

perennials

Gillyflowers, Dianthus 'Bath's Pink'

The gillyflowers are in bloom.

Gillyflowers, you ask? Aren't those Dianthus, you ask politely?

To you, maybe, but when I read that another common name for Dianthus is gillyflower, I decided that's the name for me.

I got my starts of this particular gillyflower, which is Dianthus 'Bath's Pink' from the Hoosier Gardener. I remember she dropped off a

The Legend of the Toad Lily

The Legend of the Toad Lily

fairies Humor perennials

Tricyrtis 'Imperial Banner'

Once upon a time, there were several garden fairies out enjoying a cool late summer's evening.   They were having a marvelous time, drinking dew drop tea and eating bits of acorn muffins, when one of them spied a little white lily shaped flower.

All the garden fairies thought the little white lily looked rather plain and decided right then to give it a new look so

As the Garden Grows: Cup Plant

As the Garden Grows: Cup Plant

perennials

Silphium perfoliatum

Cup plant, Silphium perfoliatum, bloomed one day after Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day so I didn't include it in my last post.

This particular native flower is often called Cup Plant because water collects at the base of the leaves where they attach to the stem, making it a handy source of water for goldfinches and other birds who eat the seeds of the spent blooms.

Cup Plant

Overheard in a garden

Overheard in a garden

garden Humor perennials

If you are very quiet in a garden and stand quite still, you can hear the flowers talking to one another.

Listen in to the conversation overheard in the August Dreams Garden border on a still, early morning.

"Good morning, flower friends.  Hey Solidago, what's going on over there?"

"Glad you asked, Rudbeckia.  Please call us Goldenrod. Did you see how Carol trimmed us back the other day?  We