Over the last few posts, I have been singing a lament over our historic heat wave. One of those paintbrushes, about which I was recently so proud, has shriveled up, brown... A heartleaf arnica plant that had made a comeback this year (but it hasn't bloomed yet, so I didn't include it in my posts), something chomped it and the remainder went brown. I am hopeful that these plants have just decided to sit this one out and try again next year. We'll see. I was watering every few weeks until now, but I think I need to let things be.
The two flowers shown here are photographs that I took about this time last year. This year the plants themselves are doing fine, nice and green, but they did not deliver their blooms this year. I assume it is because of the bizarre weather. The Triteleia was a gift, probably from the birds, showing up years ago underneath a young pine tree. For years I would only see the leaves and then three years ago, I had a bloom! Quite a few bloomed last year in that spot. My native-plant book does not show this growing in Whitman County, but here it is. If you compare it to the other Triteleia I posted, you can see the resemblance--palouserivermusic.douglasbrodiaea Also, if you compare it to native alliums, you can see how it got its common name--Fool's onion. palouserivermusic.tapertiponion
The Clematis was a rescue. My friend Diane called me four years ago, having seen this plant growing in the gravel beside the road. No other natives nearby--just wheat. How this plant was able to eke out an existence there is a mystery. A crew was grating the road, and we got the plant out not long before everything in that area was ripped out of the ground by the equipment. The clump split into two plants and both are doing fine. But no blooms this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment