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Flower buds

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Wordless Wednesday

toadlilybuds

Hmmm should I get you guys to guess what this plant is? I know what it looks like!

Gee what kind of flower has elongated hairy brown buds that have red tinged balls at their base? If all plants looked this funny I think more people would be gardeners. Don’t you?

Alright, enough guessing. These are the flower buds of the Toad Lily, which despite it’s funny looking buds has beautiful flowers. I did a green thumb post a while back about Toad Lilies that describes the plant and how to grow them if you are interested in reading more about them. Just click on the toad lily link listed in the beginning of this paragraph.

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Lovely Aster

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aster

I love asters. I only wish that they bloomed throughout the whole summer rather than the end of summer and into fall. I spend the summer waiting for them to bloom and then I’m sad when I see them finally blooming because that means our season of nice weather will soon be over.

My mother also loved her asters. I think they were one of her favorite flowers, and I believe that that is why I grow them each year in my own garden.

I didn’t even plant any this past year, but I was lucky because several of them must have generously reseeded so I got to have my asters this year.

Amazingly, it’s been going below zero quite often most nights the past three weeks, but somehow my petunias, snap dragons, New York Asters and a number of my roses are still blooming away as if the weather was much warmer. I don’t understand. I guess my raise beds are keeping a number of my plants warm and happy, but it doesn’t explain the hanging baskets and strawberry planters full of still blooming flowers.

There are a lot of new Green Thumber’s or people who want to join the meme. I have sent anyone who contacted me instructions on how to put the blogroll on your site. If you have it on your site but you haven’t told me- well you still aren’t on the blogroll. I’ve spent a lot of time tracking people down and I just don’t have time to keep doing this.

I also just completely Re created the *new* Green Thumb Sunday page. Please visit it at it’s new link. Complete instructions on how to add the blogroll to your site for the most popular blog software types is listed on that page.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Large Seed Pod

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Wordless Wednesday

Does this look familiar to anyone?

daturaseedpod4

What could this be? A very well disguised grenade? An ancient weapon of torture? Believe me touching one of these is torturous, those thorns are very prickly and sharp.

It’s a seed pod and it’s at least the size of a golf ball or a regular sized plum if not bigger. Actually, looking at the photo I’d say that it was about that size when I took the photo.

This seed pod forms immediately after the short lived flower drops off. It takes a week or more for the seed pod to reach this size. Seed pods form throughout the growing season. I’ve found that if I remove the seed pods – naturally with heavy gloves or by carefully positioning my pruners I get more flowers than I would if I left the pods on.

This flower is not hardy to my Canadian zone 6a, or USD zone 5B garden, but I seem to miss a seed pod or two each year, or so I think, and the plant regrows each summer.

I have two of these plants. One has large white flowers and the other has very pale mauve flowers. The blooms have a heavenly almost jasmine like scent, but it’s leaves smell when crushed between the fingers. I can’t describe the smell well – rank, musky, unpleasant.

Oh yes, this plant is said to have been used by native Indians for it’s hallucinatory properties – even though it is a very poisonous plant.

What type of plant does this seed pod come from?

Update: For those of you who were wondering – it’s a DATURA seed pod.

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