June Flower Friday

 

It's time for another Flower Friday! I'm enjoying this new rose that I planted. It was a Costco purchase which are usually pretty good. This one is taking off, but it's next to the Jasmine so it got wrapped up in vines and pulled to the edge of the fence. Of course the deer took advantage of that situation. So I have to keep on top of the Jasmine creeping over again. The other rose I bough at Costco was planted in a spot where it's not getting enough sun, but the flowers have been lovely, they're a silvery pale lavender.color.

We visited my SIL earlier this month, and DH helped my BIL construct this support stand to hold up his Passionflower vine. It's quite heavy with fruit and needed some support. 

My BIL is an amazing fruit and vegetable gardener, he spends a lot of time on his garden. It just so happens that Passionflower is a fruit with a truly beautiful flower. Here are some flowers that haven't opened up their buds yet.

Here's a view of part of our garden and house, the fig tree is on the right, the pomegranate is in the center near the house where it is almost entirely blocking a window. There should be iris and peonies near the day lilies in the foreground but the gophers got them. (booooo)

A night time full-moon picture through the redwoods from underneath the Angel's Trumpet.

Santa Barbara Daisy is doing well in the semi-shade, spreading out like it's supposed to.

A surprisingly late plain old purple iris bloomed. These are boring compared to the fancier varieties, but I truly love this color combination of all the purples almost to blue and then out to lavender almost pink.

The Bear's Breech (aka Acanthus) are going great this year. The big exuberant leaves wilt during the hot part of the day and then recover later. But wow, this is the most flowers ever! The out of control Wisteria is looming in the background.

Such a beautiful flower structure.

No really, I could look at these all day, they are so complex and interesting.

Some of the Day Lilies are blooming.

I really like seeing these slowly open and unfurl.

I really love this picture with all those water drops.

The scented Geranium is spreading out well and battling for supremacy with the Jasmine.

Roses, Scented Geranium, Day Lilies, volunteer ferns and Jasmine in the background.

Flower Friday for May

 Well, as it's still May, it is definitely time for a 🏵🌹🌻💐Flower Friday!🏵🌹🌻💐

I'm glad I got this picture of this lovely shade of Gerbera Daisy as the deer ate it that very night.

I saw this plant in a FFA (Future Farmers of America) garden next door to my mom's place. It looks like snapdragons or maybe fuchsia but it is Autumn Sage "Salvia  'Shell Dancer'"

 

My Lenten Rose (Hellebore) which has been changing colors, the outer "petals" are sepals which are leaves, so they do tend to get green.

The Columbines that self-sow every year are a pretty color combination this time.

The Globemaster alliums bloomed again, but they were not even close to advertised 1.5 - 3' high stems.

The Jerusalem sage is really taking over, I promised to divide and dig it up so it's not blocking the path once the blooms are done.

The Watsonia blooms are lovely this year, but this time it is pink instead of white?

This color combination on the Kangaroo Paws really gets me.

Gerbera Daisy, another one I got a picture of before the deer discovered them.

A Lion's Ear blooming outside a restaurant in Redwood City, memo to me, try growing this one.

A Minaret flower, related to the one above, such an interesting structure.

The Pomegranate tree was pruned a whole lot earlier this year so there are A LOT of blooms.

A Lacecap Hydrangea blooming outside a restaurant in San Jose that caught my eye. I wish I could grow these in my garden but they take too much water.

The poison tree (Angel's Trumpet) has been cut back so many times this year, but it Keeps Growing Back. The flowers smell so good after it rains.

And lastly, a new plant that I'm growing, a Silver Sage 'Salvia Argentea'. 

That's definitely enough flowers for now!

Peony Day

 

It's finally Peony Day in my garden! After more than a week of buds not quite opening, today it happened.

Woohoo, so beautiful!

I'm always so surprised how exuberant they are. It might be time to plant another color of Peony. Maybe.

And they timed their blossoming so perfectly with the irises again this year. By the way, that's rhubarb leaves in the foreground.

And the Angel's Trumpet is Out of Control even though I'd pruned it back at least by half. But it smells so good so it's staying until DH cuts it down. 

Okay that's enough about flowers, back to sewing now.

Garden Varieties

I've been out in the garden the last couple of days. A lot to do as the rain stops and the heat begins. So there's no new sewing pictures or work to report on. Here's some flower pictures from the previous month, call it a day early Flower Friday.

Admiring this one iris that's finally come through with the special, fancy colorations. 

There's a local person a couple towns over from us that holds a yearly "Iris Sale". We went probably five years ago and this is one of the ones that I bought and planted. Glad it's finally decided to show itself off.

Some very lovely lemons from my mom's former neighbor. In one of the ceramic trophy bowls that I claimed when we helped her move.

A picture of the blooming Large Wild Iris at my mom's house with red geraniums in the background.

Several colors of Columbines this year. I'd call this Dusky Rose, maybe?

These Columbines really are interesting structures.
 

Class Flowers

 

I'm taking a class with Jane Sassaman this month working on Abstracting From Nature. I've always really enjoyed her quilts and have been lucky to see some in person. They're all exquisitely created and so well designed. It's been very fun being in class learning from her.

For the class we had to chose a flower or plant to work with, I chose Sour Grass (aka Oxalis). Sure they're weeds, and invasive ones at that where I live, but I love them. These pictures were taken in my parent's backyard last week.

Not really clover, but the leaves look very clover-ish. Always three heart shaped leaves.

After a whole lot of sketches and studies using Jane's great class structure, I came up with this design. The rectangle will be the edge of the quilt. I think the title will be "Sour Grass Grace".

Using some colored paper I played with the shapes on the design wall.

Free Thread Nets

 

I didn't take a before picture, but these sketchy knit sleeves were on each Spider Mum in a bouquet my DH bought me. As I slipped them off, I remembered seeing something like these for sale at a quilt shop recently.

Yep! They work and on all sorts of spools and cones. I love recycling and this was a really low-effort one.

I think they work really well on these medium sized cones of rayon thread. It's such a slippery thread that it never likes to stay wound up.

Here's how the Spider Mums look out of their nets.  So fresh and fancy and frilly.

DH said that he chose that bouquet specifically because of the nets and how "the flowers looked so weird, I knew you'd love them." True true.