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Flowers Around Town, in May
various dates
It started in the days of covid-19. Everyone was told to sequester at home. For me, a difficult part of the restrictions meant I could no longer go to visit gardens. Very sad. To make me feel better, Paul would drive me around town to look for flowers in people's yards. I did my best to photograph out the car's window, with an occasional escape out the door for an image while huddled against the car. Now vaccinated (multiple times, in the years since) I am still watching for flowers in other gardens. But now I can comfortably get out of the car and even cross the street.
Sunday, 19 May 2024
On last Wednesday's journey to the New York Botanical Garden I noticed a number of
Empress tree, Paulownia tomentosa, along the highway. Big, bold, masses of lilac flowers.
Stopping in the midst of traffic on a limited access highway for pictures not a prudent idea.
This one is closer to home and definitely somewhere safer. The flowers really attract attention.
They flower before leafing out with large heart shaped leaves similar to those of a catalpa.
.
Sawdust on a board on the bridge across the creek (the Empress tree was on the far side.)
A carpenter ant was excavating a nesting chamber.
A lovely stand of bicolor bearded iris on Ridge Road. Iris was goddess of the rainbow
and I have certainly seen a rainbow array of bearded iris as I drive around here and there.
Siberian iris have a more limited palette. This saturated purple one is likely 'Caesar's Brother'.
Another, also intensely saturated hue is this peony, its cerise pink satiny petals embellished
with a golden yellow central tuft of stamens. Lovely plant, easily grown, deer don't eat it.
Reaching to the second story windowsill, a massive purple rhododendron
on Milford Road. The shrubs seem to be all over the place, or perhaps it is
just that their masses of flowers, hiding the green leaves, really stand out.
Thursday, 9 May 2024
In April, the flower bed outside this fence was bright with golden daffodils and
the deep blue of grape hyacinths, Muscari armeniacum. Now, it is the floating bubbles
of ornamental onions. Most likely, I think, Allium aflantunense 'Purple Sensation'.
They are grouped near the gate and its arbor, their foliage already yellowing and withering.
Tuesday, 7 May 2024
A towering specimen of the European horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, on Ridge Road.
Its most attractive feature are the towering candles of flowers held above the bold palmate leaves
in early May. The conkers are poisonous for humans, cattle, horses, and sheep. Deer and squirrels
are apparently able to eat them, and they are - for those animals - a good source of fat and protein.
You might have heard of kudzu, nicknamed "the vine that ate the South." It densely climbs over
trees, growing so rapidly that it smothers and kills them by blocking most of the sunlight. Our winters
are cold enough to keep kudzu at bay. But if global warming settles here it might be a different story.
Meanwhile, we have wisteria. It does climb trees (if not as voraciously as kudzu) as here on Ridge Road.
A cascading waterfall of this wisteria in bloom. This strain is
much paler, almost silvery in color, than most that I have seen.
If a plant's flowers are deeply colored, a white variation is searched for as something special.
Conversely, if typically white, the colored form is preferred, such as this pink dogwood on Ridge Road.
On Second Street - a rugosa rose starting into bloom, with a skirting of coral bells, Heuchera americana.
Like a small tree, Viburnum plicatum 'Mariesii' layers its frothy flowers at a house on Harrison Street.
A pink dogwood at a house on Harrison Street, harmonizing with the details of the paint work.
Bearded iris making a fine display against the marine blue of this house on Harrison Street.
See also Flowers Around Town in March
and
Flowers Around Town in April
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