Garden Buzz – Page 20

I grow a number of different flowers and plants in my garden, but you’ve probably guessed by now (if you’re a regular reader) that there’s more roses than any other type of plant. Having said that I do enjoy my more unusual flowers like my Black Hollyhocks:

This picture doesn’t do this large open flower justice.

The color of the petals appear black from a distance, but when you get up close you can see that the petal color is really a very deep maroon. If you look at the petal in the top right you can see some of the deep maroon color that I’m talking about.

I love these flowers velvety appearance too.

Another flower that I like is the Balloon flower. In particular I enjoy looking at the flower buds before they bloom.

The buds look like balloons that are about to float away.

I must go now and close the doors and windows. A skunk must be walking around the neighborhood. The pungent smell is coming into my house. Stinky! I’m surprised my dog hasn’t reacted to the smell yet!

I thought I’d take a moment to highlight a few of our Green Thumb Sunday participants recent posts.Â There are some fantastic photos on these pages as well as stories to go with them!

Check it out:

Green Thumb Sunday – Orange roses. Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California.Gardeners, as well as plant and nature lovers, can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Green Thumb Sunday – Join Green Thumb Sunday My Mom loved her Cactus plants and shared with everyone, even potting them to be sold at the local thrift store. The plant receives very little care and attention from Pop and I, other than occasional watering, …

Green Thumb Sunday – Frost! – Supposed to be between -1 and +1 C. I have to go uncover what I did manage to cover, in a few minutes. I picked some beats, an onion, a bell pepper, potatoes, tomatoes, purple and green beans, squash, and zucchini.

Green Thumb Sunday ~ Echinopsis – Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in for Green Thumb Sunday by visiting As the Garden Grows for more information. Join. Some rights reserved. See Creative Commons License on post for details.

Green Thumb Sunday! – I always leave volunteer sunflowers. Here’s why…

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Oh what a storm

by Tricia

I really don’t know how the majority of my roses and flowers manage to stay mostly intact with all the rain and storms we’ve had this summer.

We just had a big rain and hail storm and yes there are petals littering the ground around my flower beds, but there are still a lot of flowers on my plants.

I guess I’ll just count myself lucky and cross my fingers as we’re expecting more storms!

I took that photo while I was safely inside my enclosed back porch. It’s through the screen so it’s not as clear as it could be, but it’s not that bad. The vertical streaks are rain and hail. For some reason it never looks like it’s raining as hard in my backyard as it does in the front!

The hail was literally bouncing off the ground and making large splashes!

Speaking of hail … I managed to capture one as it fell:

That while blurred blob in the red circle is a piece of hail. I’d say for the most part that the hail was approximately the size of M&M’s but that one looks bigger .. maybe grape size?

We’ve had more hail with our storms this summer than I can ever remember having! We’re lucky that the hail in this area has been rather small. Some areas (even other parts of Toronto) seem to get even larger hail – like golf ball size and as a result there’s been a lot of damage to cars and other objects this summer thanks to the massively sized hail!

I love how you can actually see the hail “trails” in this picture as it falls to the ground and lands on the grass.

Have you had strange weather in your area this summer too?

For a weed rose Dr. Huey sure is pretty

by Tricia

Dr. Huey is a rose that is commonly used as a root graft on Hybrid Tea Roses to make them stronger and possibly hardier.

If you grow roses, particularly ones that have grafted roots, you probably know that sometimes the root graft can grow it’s own shoots creating an odd looking rose bush with different colored flowers or that sometimes the graft root ends up taking over.

In my case the former owners of our home dug up their single Hybrid tea rose when they moved and I guess they left some of the graft root behind. Much to my surprise the following spring I noticed rose branches coming up out of the ground and realized that it must have been from their old rose. Of course it took me another year to realize that it was the graft root Dr. Huey.

I decided to keep the rose. After all, by accident, it was the first rose in my garden!

Dr. Huey seems to only bloom here once a year and it blooms on old wood so whether it blooms at all depend upon how harsh the last winter was. As a result my Dr. Huey weed rose only seems to bloom about every second year, but when it blooms it’s spectacular.

I don’t mind it’s red blooms one bit.

My Dr. Huey seems to bloom in late June. It’s blooms are long gone now, but not the memory of them.

Interesting flowers

For a weed rose Dr. Huey sure is pretty

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