Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Beauty Along A Country Road

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  2. 2.

    There go two miscreants

    I did not know that kudzu had flowers! (Not that I like it any better though!)

  3. 3.

    LiminalOwl

    Dayflower! That grew all over the yard when I was a child, but I never learned the name. Still beautiful. Thank you for all of these.

  4. 4.

    JeanneT

    Lovely!  I’m going to start wilding my garden (intentionally) next spring.  Rudbeckia is already on my list – I’ll have to check out the requirements of some of these other ‘weeds’ (except the kudzu!!).

  6. 6.

    satby

    And FYI: jewelweed is the old-timey remedy for poison ivy (which it grows near, so use caution). I get the leaves infused in olive oil by a local wildcrafer and use it to make a soap.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    I need more pics, people!

    What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

    Garden?  The garden of the mind?

  8. 8.

    JPL

    The pictures are beautiful and help brighten a gloomy day.   Fall has arrived in the Atlanta area.  brrr

  9. 9.

    Geo Wilcox

    I am the laziest flower gardener ever. I start out with good intentions and plant pretty stuff but get bored and the natives take over. I even had a stray foxglove pop up in one of the side gardens I use ro make it easier to mow for the dogs. I have a zero turn radius and they are a real bitch to use in weird angled places so I make curved gardens.

    I let the wilds grow around my pond as well, keeps the geese out bit the ducks love the cover the trees and plants afford. I have all of those plants above somewhere on my 22.6 acres except Kudzu. It can’t grow up here, yet, but if it ever shows up the flame thrower will be activated immediately.

  12. 12.

    Eyeroller

    @There go two miscreants: Kudzu is a legume and is edible (if not sprayed).  It is related to peas and beans, though they all belong to a large subfamily so it’s not necessarily that close a relationship.  All angiosperms have flowers–that’s the definition of the family (“flowering plants”)–though a few species seldom produce them or they are tiny.

  15. 15.

    sab

    One person’s weed is another person’s perennial. I have dayflowers, jewel weeds, wild carrots and rudbeckia. The lobelia I have to replace every year.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Thanx for the pics, skybluepink.

    I’ve got lobelia migrating into and spreading thru the Zen garden and happy I am to see it. I’ve paid hell getting perennials and ground cover to establish themselves in that area with a few exceptions (columbine, bleeding hearts, and wild thyme) Everything else only sticks around for a few years and then dies out, so to have something that wants to grow there is a joy.

    Our leaves are turning now and there is a lot more color than I was expecting due to the mostly dry weather we have been suffering thru. It would be nice to think this will be a normal autumn but I don’t see that happening. I expect the leaves to turn brown and drop pretty quickly. :-( No wild fires in the area yet, but I won’t be surprised if we have a few.

    I picked what I expect to be my last (grape) maters last night. I made a cannelloni bean and mater w/ feta cheese salad with them, a fitting send off to the garden season.

  18. 18.

    Argiope

    Let’s see…cleanup day if it doesn’t rain.  I’ve learned accidentally that sage, thyme and oregano overwinter just fine in northeastern OH with absolutely no care. So does mint, obvs, because mint and oregano are basically invasive in my garden.  The basil is still hanging on despite the cool nights and sometimes days but I’ll probably do one last caprese salad today and pull in the rest to freeze.  Then to weed out the sumac, which is the bane of my gardening existence around here. Guess I’ll harvest the lemongrass too and freeze whatever looks edible.

  20. 20.

    Gvg

    I think the rudbeckia might actually be swamp sunflower which is a Heliopolis. It’s blooming now and fairly drought tolerant though spreads better with wet. It blooms in fall for a few weeks like a gold fireworks explosion and is perennial. Also very dominant and takes over an area. It’s native so you can’t really say it’s invasive, but if you have a small yard and want variety it’s better to enjoy it in nearby ditches. If you have a big enough yard though, it’s great, especially if you have a wet ditch or canal eyesore you can’t manage.

    Odd fact, the leaves are attractive green, leathery but feel like sandpaper to people but in my experience dogs love to eat them. Plants grow just fine anyway. Dogs can be just as weird as cats. Harmless to eat.

  21. 21.

    SkyBluePink

    @Gvg: This describes a flower blooming now in my yard. Very tall, very bright yellow and does want to take over.  Different though from the flowers in the above pic.

  22. 22.

    CCL

    Great closeups…

    We are busy reviewing what worked and what didn’t this year…and getting ready to start planting out the spring bulbs.

    My plan for massive crocus last year was thwarted by the squirrels, though they tended to leave the species crocus alone, but not completely.  So no crocus except for some species yellow crocus in a small bed by the back door.

    Tulip fire infected my big red patch of Darwin red tulips, so they have all been pulled out, and I will let the ground rest and recover multiple years.  Still have the Thalia daffs in there and they are just troopers, coming back year after year for maybe 20 or so?

    Thanks again for the lovely photos of the “ditch flowers.” We enjoy pretty much anything that blesses us with blooms and feeds the pollinators.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: Dan B’s email got screwed up weeks and weeks ago.  The way to reach him is by email to his email what looks like a mobile address.

    I just sent him an email letting him know you have been trying to get in touch.

  24. 24.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Pretty pictures—thanks! My garden is winding down, but I’m still hoping for a few more tomatoes to ripen before our first frost. The last of the Armenian cucumbers are ready to pick, and we’ll see if the sugar pumpkins turn orange soon. Apart from the cucumbers (a melon, really), all fruiting was delayed due to July’s horrible heat dome. We have plenty of chard and kale to take us into winter, though. We like those greens, despite the haters. :-)

  27. 27.

    Quiltingfool

    @satby: I was a seasonal naturalist for the Missouri Dept of Natural Resources.  I worked as a cave tour guide at Ozark Caverns and also wandered around HaHaTonka State Park as a roving interpreter.

    You are correct in pairing jewelweed and poison ivy!  They grew together along the banks of the spring at HaHaTonka.  Jewelweed had another name, Touch-Me-Not.  If you touched the seed pods they would explode, ejecting seeds.  Very entertaining, while loitering along the trail!

    One visitor pointed to a growth of Virginia Creeper, asking if that was poison ivy.  I told him, “No, but you are standing in a bunch of poison ivy.  Lucky for you, that jewelweed growing next to it is an antidote!”  That was a twofer – a visitor learned what poison ivy looks like and the medicinal properties of jewelweed!

  29. 29.

    Quiltingfool

    @mrmoshpotato: I don’t have flowers anymore either!  I used to, and it was very satisfying getting pretty flowers to grow in our chert strewn, minimal topsoil, clay heavy soil!

    I’d have to do a lot of soil enrichment in our yard to get decent flowers.   When we built our house, they scraped the “topsoil” off to almost the top of the hard pan (concrete-like clay layer; takes water a long time to go through it and after heavy rains, water flows on top of it – ask me how I know, lol!)

    I do love flowers so I think I may start growing them in pots and baskets around the front porch.  Our yard looks so blah, but the deer and our one groundhog enjoys it!

    I’m rather aggravated at Chuck, the groundhog, though.  He has gnawed around the frame of the front door.  It’s not like there isn’t plenty of big sticks and trees around here!  I suppose he loves the convenience, the door frame is close to his home, under the porch deck!

  31. 31.

    Rachel Bakes

    Poison Ivy has been exploding in the northeast, increasing CO2 levels are causing it to flourish. Then this pst summer the jewelweed exploded, conveniently. Interesting symbiosis perhaps?

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quiltingfool: our chert strewn, minimal topsoil, clay heavy soil!

    Our Washington County hilltop haven is the same. I dealt with it by putting down 6″ of compost w/ some light tilling and planting flowers, etc directly in it. Works just fine. In our veggie garden I put down 4″ of compost every year for about 6 years (as the garden grew, I didn’t add it everywhere) till I had put down 12-14″ and tilling it into the “soil”. It is noticeably different form the hard pan we have everywhere else, almost sponge like.

  33. 33.

    CCL

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Our Washington County hilltop haven is the same. I dealt with it by putting down 6″ of compost w/ some light tilling and planting flowers, etc directly in it. Works just fine. In our veggie garden I put down 4″ of compost every year for about 6 years (as the garden grew, I didn’t add it everywhere) till I had put down 12-14″ and tilling it into the “soil”. It is noticeably different form the hard pan we have everywhere else, almost sponge like.

    Same here.

  35. 35.

    JAM

    We’re having nights in the forties, but no freeze yet. I pruned all the dead stuff from my surviving tomato plants and they’re having a second wind with several green fruits.  Hopefully they will ripen before the freeze.  I just pulled a bunch of dayflowers from my beds–I let it grow around the base of the redbud, but that means I have to pull it everywhere else so it doesn’t take over.  I’m also starting a new bed for natives specific to Oklahoma.

  38. 38.

    SkyBluePink

    @JAM: These have a mid brown center and flower at the end of 5-7ft stems. Some type of heliopsis in the asteraceae family from what I can find.

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