As the Garden Grows

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You were first last time

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Have you ever had the opportunity to watch a squirrel run around your yard or the neighborhood?

They’re rarely alone. If one’s digging a whole in your garden bed another one is sure to show up and try to scare the first squirrel away so that it can have the goody that was being buried. The ones I see are always chasing each other along any of the fences that enclose my yard, up the electric pole and across the electrical wires that are high above over our yards.

I think someone snapped this photo during a rather ambitious chase. The lower squirrel is not going to let the other get up that skinny tree before it does. LOL

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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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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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