Hi, howrya? Please read that in the Mayo accent in which I would say it. I must apologise to all the bloggers I follow: I can’t seem to be able to comprehend very much, my concentration is terrible, and my sense of humour has nearly deserted me (when is the last time I tagged something as humour/humor? It’s been yonks). I do read everyone’s blog, but I can’t seem to summon up much in the way of a response. Sorry, I hate being like this.

What seems to be working for me is visuals. So! More photos. I did a walk through town last time. I’ve taken more shots in town, but I think we’ll go back to purdy flors again. Please read that in the NW Florida/southern Alabama accent in which I would say it.

First photo is a crappy iPad one. But, it is my mystery plant, and the mystery is now solved! First I have to give a shout out to the fabulous website, Shoot, and its plant finder. It didn’t take much time at all to get to the eureka moment and find the answer to what I’ve been wondering for weeks.

Please meet my Mimulus! There are about 150 species and I didn’t have the patience to figure out which one I have. Or is that which ones, as there are three different colour blooms? Common name is ‘monkey flower,’ but I have no idea why.

The rest of my pics are taken on the new fancy-pants camera. Did I mention that it requires you to look through the viewfinder? And actually turn the lens to focus? It has a lovely big screen, like a digital cam should, but since I have to put my eye up to the little hole, the screen is always smeared with nose grease. That’s when my schnozzola isn’t pressing the menu button and changing the settings. Oh! Here’s a picture of the camera itself. I took it for a walk a few weeks ago. No pictures, because the battery, unknown to me, was dead. So I took a pic with my iPhone of the heavy-ass camera I took for a walk, in a bag on my shoulder, like an expensive pampered chihuahua. I thought I should take a pic of it just to memorialise the first time I took it out, since it didn’t bloody well work and I had no other way to record the day’s events. Yes, I stuck it on a stone wall in a cow field. Damn thing.

Okay NOW the rest of the pics are by the pretty Nikon.

Phlox, Phlox, Phlox, Phlox! My other mystery solved. I don’t remember planting this stuff but I have oodles. Really, oodles. Must have been one of those late plantings where I shrugged and said, ‘ah, who gives a phlox?’ It smells heavenly, and every flower seems to be a different colour. Sadly the bees don’t seem to know what to do with it. I have no idea what happens next, as phlox is a biennial and I don’t have any other biennials in my garden. We will see! But if I have to plant again, I will certainly put in fewer seeds. I have this stuff everywhere now. Not that I mind, of course.

My leggy irises. They are already starting to fade, boo. But I love that second bloom, it has white streaks on it when none of the others do. Have I created a mutant?

The weed! I love it. Screw the neighbours and their store-bought plug plants. Weeds are pretty too, and free!

This is a Houttuynia cordata ‘pied piper.’ We, um, kind of stole it from the church’s badly-cared-for gravel ‘landscaped’ parking lot. It’s in a pot and usually lives indoors – but I’ve seen a local garden where it has rather naturalised. I put it outside early this year and it is so very happy. I wish the colours were true to life – they aren’t, even after some tweaking using Perfectly Clear. That one leaf at bottom slightly to the left is amazingly bright! I couldn’t get fancy-pants camera to focus on just that leaf like I wanted it to. Maybe I should read the manual. Hahahah.

Californian poppies! These are blooms on the plants that survived the winter here – I never thought that something with ‘Californian’ in the name could survive so well here. But they seem to be slug-proof and the seeds are numerous and very viable. I’ll have these for the rest of my life, I think!

I’ll wrap up with my broad beans, I’ve never grown these before, and I’m astounded with how beautiful the flowers are. I had the most difficult time getting these photos. Nothing looked in focus, and I just couldn’t seem to capture that pale pink blush at the base of each flower. It shouted at me, that pink, when looking at the blooms. But it was so shy and didn’t want to be caught.

The bees love them, too.