A Parade of Jeanz Summer Flowerz...

I thought I'd take the opportunity provided by Gather's "Summerpics" promotion to trot out some favorite photos of my flowers... I hope you enjoy them!

I have lots of miniature roses in shades of yellow, pink, red and even green! Here are just a few of them.

This one is called "Blackjack". It's supposed to be a "black miniature rose" (I have this "thing" for black and green flowers... Yes, I know... It's weird... Whaddaya expect from somebody who has "just the teensiest bit odd" in their Gather screename? ...lol...) but, it's actually a deep red in bud stage and then, when the flowers bloom out completely, the edges of the center petals turn very, very dark -- almost black!

Dramatic, eh?

This next miniature is called "Sugar Elf"... I really like all "two-toned" or "gradient" flowers such as this one...

What a "delicious" color!

This next miniature rose is called "Cameo". Its flowers are a very pretty shade of "salmon-y rose"...

It's very hardy, too...

I have a miniature rose, called a "Si Rose", which is supposed to have the smallest flowers of any miniature rose in the world... I don't know for certain if that's true but it certainly has the smallest rose blossoms I'VE ever seen...

Cute, huh? :o)

As promised, here is my green (or "verdis gris") rose. It's a native of China and the flower petals of the blossoms actually resemble leaves more than they do flower petals...

Weird, huh? ;o)

As I said, I have this "thing" for green flowers... Here's one of my green carnations:

It's a VERY hardy little carnation that's able to put up with different climates and it seems to resist insects pretty well, too!

This next flower isn't ALL green -- it's actually lime green with navy blue stripes and bright pink! It's called "Queen's Tears" (latin name "bilbergia rutens") and it's a member of a class of sub-tropical plants called "bromeliads"...

Pretty cool, doncha think? :o)

A have a friend who serves with me on the Advisory Committee for Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Farm who is a "horticultural historian" and teaches at Berkeley. He says that bilbergia was probably the first "house plant" ever brought to California because the Spanish most likely brought it up from Mexico where it is a native...

That same "horticultural historian" friend gave me this next plant... It's called "Chilean Jasmine" but my friend said that its common name is "Sacred Inca Vine". Whatever its name, its flowers smell WONDERFUL!

I have lots of plants that were given to me as "starts" or "slips". Another member of Burbank's Farm Advisory Committee gave me these next two plants. (You may remember her from another photo-essay that I did here on Gather about her 90th birthday party!)

This is a dahlia that she gave me a tuber of several years ago... They've multiplied quite a bit since then!

She also gave me "slips" of this next plant -- a "double petaled" geranium -- which is now HUGE! Although the photo makes it look more red-colored, it's actually a deep magenta color that is more purple-ish than the photo would suggest...

Another friend on the Advisory Committee gave me this next plant... It's the only plant I own that I don't know the name of... This is because of it's somewhat "shady" history, I'm afraid...

You see, another friend of that friend actually "smuggled" a start of this plant into the U.S. on a trip back from South Africa...

UUUUuuuu! Intrique! ;o)

The plant and leaves resemble very much an "aloe" or other sedum-type succulent with roundish, pointed leaves... If any of you know what the latin name (or even the "common name", for that matter) of it is, I'd love to find out:

It's quite cute, though -- don't you think?

Back when I owned and ran a small nursery from my house in Sebastopol CA, I used to sell plants at the weekly "Farmer's Market" there and also at the huge "flea market" just out of the town limits. I got these next two plants "in trade" from other vendors who traded some plants that I had for these...

The first one of these is a "lace cap" hydrangea. It's a bit different looking that the standard "macro-leafed" hydrangea that you're used to seeing in most people's yards (although, recently more and more people have them, to be sure). I like the tiny, little "starlike" flowers in-between the regular-sized ones. :o)

This next one started out as one plant, YEARS ago and I have divided it up several times over the years... Some of the resulting plants I sold and some I gave away as gifts because it DOES have one of the most magnificent flowers in the plant world... It is a "bird of paradise".

Birds of Paradise are so aptly named! You look at one and you expect it to start squawking and then fly off ANY MINUTE!!! :o)

Last year and this year, I grew several "annuals" (flowers that die off after the first freeze of winter) and "perennials" (year-round plants -- at least around HERE they grow year-round!) from seed and here are a couple of them:

First my "Canterbury Bells" (or "campanula")... I grew them from a seed mix of colors. I have a white one , a light purple (or kind of a "lavendar" color) one and this dark purple one. The mix is called "Cup and Saucer" and, when you see the flowers, you can understand why they named them that:

It DOES look like a saucer with a cup (right down to the "handle" of the cup!) on it, doesn't it? :o)

One of the "annuals" I grew this year came from seed called "Sensation Mix" which has 3 or 4 colors in the mix. Here is one of the light-purple, pinkish ones:

Cosmos are generally quite "well behaved" plants in that they are easily grown from seed and resist diseases and insects well... They are a very old-fashioned flower that your grandmother probably grew, too!

Another of the old-fashioned annuals I really like are "bachelor buttons". There are white, pink and lavendar bachelor buttons nowadays but my favorite is still the old-fashioned blue-blue one:

Truly "blue" flowers are a comparative rarity in the plant world and that's probably why I like this one the best...

This next plant I started from a "slip" that I got when after pruning a large plant of it when I worked as a gardener for a former landlady... It's called "bee balm":

I don't, as a rule, especially care for yellow flowered plants but this is a nice shade of yellow and bee balm is very attractive to both butterflies and hummingbirds so I made an exception in its case... lol... ;o)

My mother has always been something of a flower gardener herself and she gave me the original "slips" of this next plant -- an "Easter Cactus"; however, THIS Easter cactus is kind of wacky because it doesn't seem to have the slightest CONCEPT of when Easter is... It blooms at least twice a year and, so far, NOT ONCE on "Easter"!

The flowers ARE gorgeous, though... Very "showy", don't you think?

The last flower I'm going to show you is a member of the lily family. It's a plant invention (hybrid) of the "Plant Wizard" himself, Luther Burbank. It's called a "Crinum Lily":

I guess Ole Luther knew what he was doing... Cuz it's a "show stopper", alright... Very impressive to look at with HUMONGOUS flowers in a very delicate "blush" of barest pink...

Well, my friends... I hope you enjoyed this little parade of Jeanz Summer Flowerz... Thanks for "being"... :o)

luv,

jean