Musings

Flocks of phlox

I swear that five days ago this plant didn’t even have buds…at least in a casual glance.

We have to have caught up our rainfall deficit a bit the last few days. I got this basil cluster to plant and failed to do so before the deluge, but it might not have been any better off if I had.

Plant snippets

Pansies are a winter flower in these parts, and we’re coming to the end of pansy season.

BTW, I learned the other day of ensete/enset (Ensete ventricosum), which is the principal traditional starch food of Ethiopia (for 20 million folks) and neighboring lands across eastern Africa. It’s in the banana family, and it looks like a banana plant. And I had never heard of it.

Showy thistle

I do like the jagged edges and the silver tint of cardoon vegetation. Cardoons are Cynara cardunculus. Although today planted in this area as ornamentals, in colonial days they were planted for food…stems mostly I think, but perhaps also the buds.

Lone daffy in taxus

Lotsa rain overnight, and a variable day, including actual sunshine. This was when it was still overcast.

Simple pleasure (ish)

As I did a bit of photo tweaking, I thought: harhar, I’m cropping the new crop of camellia buds.

Burgeoning plants

The weedy onions are rising and pollen (not shown) is adrift.

Small world

Moss-world is flourishing these days, including on this aging wall of decaying concrete.

Warming week

A lovely dawn-sky…

…heralded a sunny day.

Bloomins

I managed to insert my walk between spates of rain. I’ve been seeing that the Magnolia liliiflora are blooming here and there. I finally spotted one I could approach with my camera (aka phone).

On the home front, the camellia decorations on the hood of the car continue…not so pretty when the blooms are freeze-fading, but still artful.