Bloom of the Day: Zinnia (Asteraceae)

  Favored by butterflies and people of all ages, the Zinnia has at least 20 annual and perennial type qualities, come in all kinds of colors; even variegated, and can be low mounding types or tall, somewhat stalkless (sessile) appearance.  Actually, I find that most of them have the hollow peduncle stems that are short and interspersed with leaves that grow right off the stalk.  It has also been around since the mid 1700's and named after a German botonist with the last name of Zinn who named the genus.  Thank you Herr Zinn!

  The blooms that grow all over the Americas and Europe come in rows of petals around a center, or sometimes is multi-layered like a little dome of petals. There are all kinds of sizes of blooms right in the same patch.  Usually, there is a center circular "crown" of yellow-gold little cross-like stamens (I am guessing here on the anatomical-botanical properties) after the blooms have been open for a few days.  I have all colors and the ones I love the most must have actually gotten some fertilizer...they are practically neon, they are so bright!  Purples, reds, orange, yellow, pink, red and white striped...oh, so many to enjoy!

 I learned something new today; I discovered early on that you can dry the heads and save them for next years seed stock, but, it may not produce the same color as the parent.  That would explain it!

 Here I am, even now, drying the heads by color.

 One great thing about Zinnias are that the colors you like the most, cut the most frequently.  They absolutely will give you an abundance of blooms if you deadhead every few days.  I am harvesting now and have a vase in every room of the house, some places in a grouping.

  I am so thankful for summer time!

  We had a huge storm in this area this past weekend and some of my Zinnia friends were layed completely over or yanked out by the roots! That happened to some of my sun flowers in full regalia as well.  One stalk was completely uprooted and laid over like some of the trees in the neighborhood.  I cut off 24 blooms from one stalk.  I hated it being a casualty!  Sometimes, like a friend, you don't know what ails them and you hope they snap out of it in a day or two!

 Try them out if you have a friend who will give you some seeds for next year; of course if you live in a region lower than 6 where I am, you might be able to get another bloom in before frost; certainly if you do not have frost, you can. 

  In the garden of life, I hope we are mostly Zinnia; cheerful, resiliant, abundantly blooming and easy to cultivate. Cut a bunch and enjoy them; not aromatic but they are lovely!

(Liliaceae) A Few Varieties of Lillies

"Ditch" Day-Lilly

Hello all,

 I have had a bit of "technical difficulty" in archiving the daily entries with the desired pictures so I thank you for your patience.  
 The desired format is that the photo matches the flower description and theme of the day.  That has not always been happening and as in real life, finding a live person to assist with it has been the second challenge.
 I am posting the previous entries anyway and will have it all sorted out soon.
 Happy Gardening~

Well! There are just so many words to describe how we feel about lillies!  Some people spell it L-i-l-l-y and some ending in "i-e" but no matter, there are at least 110 kinds in this species.

 My county extension office prepares publications quarterly and it happened to arrive today with a reminder of 8th grade botony.  They are also a terrific resource for planting, harvesting, de-bugging, preparing and storing vegetables, flowers, grass, trees; any growing thing in your area, if you have not tried them.  Ours is found under UK, College of Agriculture (free!).

  Some plants, as you know, have stamens (male) and pistils (female) parts in each flower, as well as the anther and filament which comprise the stamen, and, then the sitgma, style and ovary comprise the pistal.  Ta-Da, ovaries are everywhere!  The common orange lilly found all throughout the midwest in North America are fondly called "Ditch Lillies" because you can find them everywhere along roadsides. Prolific little ovaries in that variety!  If you do not want to beautify the neighborhood, you may want to contain them in a pot.

  Like Day-Lillies, if you have the time to break off the wilted pods (Oops, I learned a full one from a wrinkled one is new vs. old), it will then deliver the growth to the remaining pod...like pruning.  In the picture above, I actually captured both.  The pod on the left is new; unbloomed, the pod to the bottom right of the open bloom is spent or wrinkled.  You can take that off the stem. There are so many fabulous varieties of lillies that when I figure out how to put more than two pictures on a single blog, I will add some photos from the virtual garden of my real garden.  I also have a friend in town that we swear that she gets the Sunshine Blessing first; anything that blooms, blooms first in her yard and she has wonderful lilly beds.  

 My maternal grandmother had an ability to grow anything in plain old dirt in an old orange juice can as a starter place.  Long before potting soil and vermiculite (Verma-who?), Ruth would stick something down in the OJ can, root it and bring it to bear on a farm in central Illinois where people would come from miles around to see the heads of flox waving back at them in the summer months.

  I went to an all-women party Saturday night.  We were all different varieties, all different backgrounds and each in her own way, was a striking specimen.  Do not be afraid to consider that the woman in your mirror is one!

 I do not know why, but I know it is true, that in the garden of life, some women bloom later than others.  I have younger friends who seem to have their life so much more together than I did at that age!

  I am also discovering that there is a word for life's experience in something that patterns, simply because life does that, which is "schema".  Those of us who are older can in fact rejoice in that because it is true: there are some things we know because we have lived life and seen how things pan out, or not, in a given area.  Some of that knowledge is gained only by experiencing it.

 Lilly beds are like that too.  They prosper and are brilliant when fertilized a bit, thinned out and shared, and sometimes, when left alone right where they are to bloom quite well as they choose.

 I tried moving some this year to put several varities together and don't cha know that the one that was prized because it was the only one I had, did not like the new location!
  I am hoping that like a good friend, it is forgiving and will come around again.