Saturday, May 19, 2007

Walking in the Woods

These are wild geraniums. They are a little darker pink than they show in the picture. They grow in our woods and Bill always waits til they are done blooming to mow those areas -- and there are quite a few areas of them.
These are called Prairie Trillium -- that tiny center flower is usually maroon -- but this is late in the blooming season for them, so it's turning brown. They grow wild in the woods, except some take up residence in my big shady flower bed in the front (with the daffodils), and I let them grow there. I try not to let the weeds grow there, but I'm a bit behind already on that bed.

And these are Jack in the Pulpit. They also grow wild in our woods, but this particular one has decided he likes my front bed next to the porch. I'm not going to argue with him -- I think they are stunning plants.

And these? These are ferns and Jack in the Pulpit that are growing out from under the front porch steps! Our kids think we're dorks because we let them grow year after year - for 13 years now. The first year we moved here, Bill put in the huge flower bed in the front yard (way too big in my opinion, btw). I needed to fill it with lots of perennials -- I dug up a bunch of ferns from the woods and transplanted them -- let me tell you ferns don't like to be messed with! They did manage to grow -- I have about 6 of them in the center of that bed, but it was touch and go for the first couple of years. Yet -- this one came up on its own under the step! We also planted lots of hosta, which are finally filling in the bed.

I spent most of today working on the longarm. I only have the last side borders to do, but I needed to quit for the day because my knees were tired. Tomorrow I hope to get out and do some weeding in the sunny beds -- it's supposed to be cool tomorrow.

Gratitudes:
Wildflowers - I love the surprise of finding an unique flower among the weeds.
A quiet Saturday.
Blue skies.
Leftovers for dinner -- so easy to heat up after a long day quilting.



4 comments :

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

I love the wild flowers too - a true treasure for me is finding a lady slipper somewhere in the woods! If you have some shady spots that need filling in - do try some bleeding hearts - I've always had such surprisingly good luck with them and the colors are pretty too!

Cheers!

Evelyn

Susan said...

I, too, love wildflowers. One of the joys of traveling the way we do is getting to see so many different kinds, in so many different places. Trillium hasn't been on the list yet this year, though!

Pam said...

Surprise wildflowers cropping up here and there, love them! We're hiking tomorrow and I am taking my camera along, hope to find some wonderful color sprinkled here and there along the trail.

Shelina said...

That's my problem with gardening - I don't know what things are, so I don't know whether to leave them alone or not. Generally the ones that I leave alone are the ones that I hsould have taken out and they take over my yard. Queens Anne's lace is really beautiful, but it is very invasive.