Tag Archives: flower photos

Ginormous lilies

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I again have new blooms to share! These are more lilies of the Aldi set, and they took the longest to mature. Now that I see what they were working on, I understand why the long wait.

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Last weekend, when I thought that one petal peeling off from the bottom of the bud meant they were close to blooming.

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Wednesday, when I saw that they weren’t ready yet, and needed to change colour a bit more first.

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Thursday, when those same two flower buds had gotten so huge I needed something to show scale – my big calloused man-hand will do…

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…but those two didn’t compare to this bud. It was near to bursting with promises of beauty.

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It hasn’t disappointed!

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Same angle, sorry – but first pic was Friday and second was today.

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Something better than my hand for scale. I promise I was nearly touching the petals with the measuring tape when hubby took this picture. Over 8 inches across, or around 21cm! Quite wonderful to have outside my front door.

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Nearly forgot – early edit – this is one of the smaller ones that has also opened. I shouldn’t play favourites!

Bloomin’ Late Post

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Ugggh, I am incredibly far behind on posting photos of my most recent blooms.

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This is the only Tigridia I’ll bother with. They’ve slowed down, but nearly every day there are one or two new ones, shrivelled by the time I get home from work, of course. I have no idea what I’m to do with dozens of photos of slightly different flowers.

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You can really tell this was taken with the new SLR camera, wow! Here’s a new one, for Tom (and possibly his mother) – my giant red sunflower, from seed. This was day one that it opened. Day two the petals went droopy a bit, and now it is more of a rust colour, but the centre is getting larger and larger. It’s also not very giant. I can’t be arsed to measure it, but it’s in an 18 inch high pot and barely reaches my shoulder, and I’m 5ft 8in. Can’t be arsed to do that in metric, either – sorry! I’m under pressure to make dinner tonight…

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Broad/fava beans. The pic doesn’t give scale – the long one was really, really long. But even it only had six beans inside – a lot of messing about for hardly any bean goodness. The dog loves the pods, so at least they didn’t go to waste.

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Cosmos! Of all my seeds it seems only the white ones bloomed. This one has an interesting cupped petal…

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…while this is the more traditional form that I’m familiar with.

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More rose photos. These two bloomed together. I found it interesting the way they matured. Here, they look very similar.

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A day or two later, here is the left bloom.

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And this is the right. Both stunning and smell like a little bit of heaven.
Or my grandma.
Not too dissimilar.

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The white roses aren’t as big as last year. It’s a climber, and has gotten really leggy. I think I’ll have to prune, and I’ve never done that. No sign of new growth on my lavender rose, but at least the leaves are all still there and I’ve kept the black spot away. Wonder should I try to move it?

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I’ve saved my favourites for last, of course. My first dahlia, ever. From the Aldi set of bulbs and tubers. I have to say I’m impressed with the quality and variety Aldi had on offer. Most of the lilies, the dahlias, the Tigrida, the … Oh hell I’ve forgotten! The Babylon 5 spaceship-looking pineapple flowering thingie… Something like Euconomis. Anyhoo, all from Aldi.

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Since I’ve never had a dahlia before, I didn’t expect them to be so sloooow to open. It’s been a week and this first bloom still isn’t open all the way.

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Getting there! Seems we shoot it daily, it is ever changing. To be honest it is much further along today, but it’s dark out now.

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My current favourite – more Aldi lilies.

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What I like best about these is that the black has a raised texture as if tar has been spilt on the petals. I need to ask iDJ, with his superior photography skills, to try to capture the texture better. These blooms last a long time, too, but turn more orange red than dark red as they age.

Yes, I have more to come, but it’s my bedtime soon!

And We’re off to Mayo in the Green, in the Green

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Where the plants are glistening in the sun!

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We’ll start off with a tried and true standard, the cornflower. I have them in many colours this year. There’s pink – very tiny blossoms.

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A faded-blue-jean blue.

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And, what was described as red.

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They aren’t what I would describe as red. Oh well. I’ve planted one box in the red and blue cornflowers, with white cosmos. Red white blue, repeat. Nothing at all had bloomed in time for the 4th of July, so I can just hope I can get a decent photo for next year. None of the cosmos are blooming yet, except for one wonky looking flower I stuck in between my hostas. It has just four petals. I can’t embarrass the wee thing by taking a photo; it’s too sad.

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How about some edible stuff? My first ripe raspberry. We ate it Friday morning. I shared. The second one that came ripe I ate all by myself. Shhhh.

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Broad beans! I don’t have very many that are ready to eat. When I googled ‘when to harvest broad beans’ I found that you can eat the whole pod when they are young, or let them mature and then they become, through movie magic, fava beans. Shame I don’t like a nice chianti. Or a not-nice chianti. Or any kind of wine. But we did eat six pods on Thursday, which delayed our dinner quite a bit as I decided to cook them in the juice left over from the pork roast (with some extra garlic). I really liked the whole pod, when it was a younger and smaller one. Hubby had the oldest longest one, and I told him to open it up and just eat the beans, to see what that was like. He said it was a whole different taste. I ate his discarded pod. Nom! A bit fuzzy but there’s nothing like fresh veggies, especially when you’re not a huge veggie fan to begin with.

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First garlic pulled. Now, this isn’t bought seed garlic, it’s whatever we got at Aldi or Tesco and it went off/started to grow, so I stuck it in the ground. Woot! Looks great.

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Roses! These were taken last week, I think the bushes look even better now.

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I trimmed off all the leaves that had black spot since these pics were taken.

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Hope that helps. I paid for Rose Clear and have been using it, but they still haven’t looked that healthy.

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The blooms look great! There are two bushes out front, but they look like four as the colours change between bud and bloom. Salmon becomes soft pink, red becomes a light fuchsia.

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The damn white rose out back has bloomed at about 6.5 feet high. I can’t enjoy them way the hell up there! I think I’ll have to cut it back. It’s a climber, and seems dedicated to being a tree more than a bush.

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My lavender rose bloomed finally. It’s gone now, so photos are all I have.

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The plant is barely a foot tall, but looking good this year due to the feeding and Rose Clear. Fingers crossed I don’t have to worry that it is dead next spring!

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Remember these? Euconmis. The packet was spot-on. Little weird pineapple space flowers. I watched this grow, and it amazed me daily. I’ve regretted that I didn’t take a photo a day of it.

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But, very late in the game, there is another coming up! So I still have a chance to document.

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I’ve saved the best for last. My first black Lilly has bloomed! It did so overnight. The first photo was at about 10 am.

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This is around 4, not much change. But just look at it! Wow! iDJ really did an amazing job finding these beauties for me. Wow!

Bloomin’ July

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I have flowers! Not all of my little green friends are awake yet, but I do have my first cornflower bloom:
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Soon I’ll be overrun with them, so it’s good to appreciate the very first one to open. Hello!
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My violas from seed are blooming – I expect there will be a lot more to come, as they have really increased in height this week – odd, because it is cooler and much less sunny. I think they have cat-whiskers.
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The first lavender rosebud. It’s been a bud for days and days and days, and I couldn’t wait any longer to take a picture before it opens. I’m fascinated that the outside of the petals is a dark rosy fuchsia, but it will be so pale when open.
There’s also the dying remnants of my daffodils looking horrid in the background. And…what’s that purple blotch? Could it be? Yes! It is my first clematis bloom. Sadly it was beat to shit by the wind so that’s all you’re going to see of it. But the plant is now one year old, and over 6ft tall in places, so I expect more out if it.
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Not flowers, exactly, but my radishes are starting to bolt (make flowers) so I pulled a few. Then, oops, I left them on the kitchen counter for a couple of days and they shrivelled like prunes. Not edible. Not edible for me: but the dog loves them. Go figure.
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Do you remember the field full of yellow iris from my last post? Well, they are like a weed here, they’re everywhere right now. Including some we dug up and stuck in our own garden.

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First of my lilies. They always bloom before the yellow ones, and no sign of my fancy ones being ready to open, yet (I did have to save those from aphids today). I think I’ll have to split these out next year, that pot is a bit crowded.

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What greets me outside my back door – the lilies, and Sweet William. Did I say that it was phlox? I was phloxing wrong. Sweet William. I won’t forget! Even my neighbour complemented me on these, and was surprised to learn I grew them from seed. Hahaha!