What's blooming today?
Wordless Wednesday
LOL have you ever seen one bird chasing another? Probably lots of times, right?
I’ll bet that you never saw one catch the other by it’s tail before though!
BTW I didn’t take this picture, wish I knew who did as it’s a fantastic shot, isn’t it?
I’m always surprised when I look at the stats for this site and I see the search term “Rose of Sharon” come up almost daily all year round. There’s obviously a lot more people than I thought looking for information about Rose of Sharon shrubs!
My Rose of Sharon came to me 7 years ago as a gift from my neighbor. She has a Rose of Sharon, lets call it the mother tree, that is about 40+ years old.
I’m not sure how tall her tree is but lets say it’s somewhere between 12 and 15 feet tall. The seedling she gave me has grown quite a bit over the years and it’s only about two feet shorter than the mother tree. It’s trunk and branches have thickened, but they are still smaller in diam. than the mother trees – but not by that much.
This is definitely not the best picture of the tree that I’ve ever taken, but to show you how big it is this year and what it looks like in full bloom, here we go …
You can see the power line above the tree so that should give you an idea of how tall it is.
It’s been a beautiful addition to my garden. I love it’s purple blooms. Birds love the tree year round, and butterflies and other insects enjoy the tree when it’s in bloom. I’m sure it’s helped attract some of the butterflies that frequent my yard regularly each year.
The Rose of Sharon is a fairly hardy tree, but it’s slow to leaf out in the spring. It’s often one of the last plants to start to show signs of life in my garden. I usually see leaves forming by early June, but there have been a few years where it hasn’t leafed out till close to the end of June.
My elderly neighbor always thinks her tree is dead each year because it’s so slow and each year I reassure her that it will leaf out and bloom – and it does.
I’ll bet that the Rose of Sharon being slow to start up in the spring or early summer is one of the major reasons why I get so many searches on my site for this lovely shrub.
I used to have a Hardy Hibiscus that would die down each winter, but for the past two years it’s failed to come up. I think it’s gone. My tropical Hibiscus – that I keep indoors in the winter – is doing well in a large urn at the front of the house. There are several peach colored blooms on it.
Do you grow Hibiscus? What type and what have your experiences been with the plant?
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!
Last weekend we went to The Brick Works. It’s an old brick factory that’s been turned into an eco-preserve and I suppose tourist attraction. Likely the bricks that make up my 1927 Triple Brick house were made at this old now defunct factory.
The quarry where the company dug into the earth to get the clay to make the bricks has been turned into hiking paths, ponds and is surrounded by forest. All in the heart of the city (BTW Toronto is the 5th or 6th largest city in North America). It’s gorgeous!
Native plants grow at the Brickworks and you can find flora and fauna that are rarely seen elsewhere in the province thanks to the protective nature of this eco-preserve.
I took close to 200 photos during our few hours at the Brickworks last Saturday. It’s taken me two days to go over them, crop them and upload them to my Flickr account. That’s why my GTS posts are more than a little late today!
The first photo is a blue dragonfly (I don’t think that’s it’s main name, that’s just what I’m calling it). Apparently there are 11 species of dragonflies that make their home at the Brickworks. Dragonflies are losing their nesting grounds so this area is one of the few places in Ontario where you can see so many different types of dragonflies (and other creatures).
This is native Malva. I grow some of this in my front boulevard garden as well. It’s very pretty and under the right condition spreads moderately.
I used to know the name of this plant, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it’s called at this moment. It’s lovely, especially when it spreads throughout a field and mixes with other wild flowers.
I’m not sure what this lovely yellow flowered plant is either. It stands about two feet tall and is covered in tiny yellow flowers – at least at the beginning of July it is. Any ideas?
This is Sumac. It’s a small tree that can be seen all over Ontario. It’s leaves turn red in the fall and it’s fruit (the reddish spike) grows fuller and turns a bright red. It puts on quite a spectacular show.
I’ll have more flowers from The Brickworks on two of my other blogs – Tricia’s Musings and You are in My World Now in a few minutes if you’d like to see some more great nature photos. You can also see the whole series of “Brickwork” photos by visiting my Flickr account.
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!