One of my Balckberry Lilies has started blooming. Stunning colors. Wish the blooms were larger....but at least it adds some interest to an otherwise bloomed out garden.
Blackberry Lily
Close up
One of my favorite "found" plants. I don't know how they got there, but I discovered some many years ago in an area where granite was quarried to make asphalt at the same location.
I took some seeds and now I have them in my yard. The original ones are still in the "quarry", doing fine and never getting a drop other than what the skies allow. Tough little beauties!
Robert.
Aha! Another plant scavenger! And my family teases me about 'stealing' plants...LOL! I only take them form woods and dtiches in the middle of nowhere. But that would take the fun out of their teasing... They tease my DH about how he drives the get away car and acts as look out while I scavenge plants from the countryside....
Seeds do have a way of falling into my pockets sometimes. I just don't get it.....
And if people are going to abandon plants, I feel that it is a duty and a calling to rescue them (the plants, that is) and give them a good home. They do so need love after being treated like that! (The people are on their own. They can telephone and all, you know.)
Actually, the "quarry" is on family property, so it's all legit.
One day I'll tell you my goldfish rescue story.....
Robert.
I used to work with a lady who was a die hard PETA member. She had her dogs on vegetarian diets and gave everyone at work heck for wearing leather shoes...but she liked me so I got away with wearing, not only leather shoes...but a leather mini skirt AND a fox fur coat that I ahd won in a sales contest at a previous job.
One day she walked into Walmart and saw that their live pet department was less than humane. She raised such a stink, the manager GAVE her all the fish and birds...which she then had to find homes for. Most of them were pretty sick. Walmart had been planning to close out their live animal department anyway, and she just happened to come along at the right time and raised enough stink about the sicjk animals that the maanger was more than happy to give them all to her...along with the tanks and cages they were all in. I think she had to buy fod for them, though.
I love scavenging plants. I'm always finding neat plants in the middle of nowhere (like the AFrican Parrot Galds and Dorothy Perkins Roses that I foudn growing in ditches ont he side of the road)...or sprouting in my yard. I found 4 Wishbone plants sprouting in my azaleas today. I'd have missed them except one of them was blooming. I've potted them up and hope they make a nice show down the road. If not, I'll be looking for some seeds next year.
I also found some seeds the other day on a sale rack for a plant call the Poor Man's Weather Glass. Most of the seeds ont he rack sold for almost $2 a pack. They had them marked 4 for $1...then, since the store was clsoing, everything was 40% off the price marked. I got the seeds for .15 a pack. I bought all the neat seeds I could find and just stocked up on them. I also found some medium sizd apple baskets that were marked 50 cents. Since I had been planning to do baskets for Christmas presents this year and these baskets would have cost at least $10 each, I made out like a bandit.
Oh, I'm so glad you said Poor Man's Weatherglass! I had to Google that, never heard it before, and I found out that was what I found growing wild by the road earlier this summer! I don't know how it ended up there, but it's the red-orange on with the purply-bluish ring in the center.
I wanted to identify it before moving it, but alas, the road crew mowed! :-( But I keep checking)
I love this: an alternate name is Scarlet Pimpernel !!!!! (Love that old movie with Leslie Howard.) You did that on purpose, didn't you? Thank-you for that!
Thanks for sharing the Peta-Pet-Person story.
I guess I'll tell you my story.
I clean up at a family business on Sundays and one day I was outside looking around and looked at a house that I'd never seen inside or anything and that house has been there since before the business was there and I was a wee one then. So, I thought I'd look inside it. It's been vacant for some time now and the windows were uncovered so I went over to this tiny two-room concrete block "bungalow" (we'll call it) and looked in.
What do I see but an aquarium with two goldfish in it and a really low water level. The fish were obviously stressed and in bad shape, they weren't moving *at all*. I immediately wanted to break a window and get them out of there! It just bothered me to see them like that.
So, I made myself behave and not commit a "B&E" as they say, and when I got home I called my brother to find out who owned the house and how long it had been since he'd seen anyone around the house: WEEKS.
He found out the next day for me and I called the owner and left a message that I had a question about the house which was a renter. It was almost too much not to go back to the house to rescue the fish. It got harder with each passing day.
I never got a call back, so when I got to the shop to clean up, I went straightaway to check on the goldfish. Oh, poor things, I don't think they had moved all week!!!
Well, that did it. I go get a cup to catch them with and a bucket of water to put them in and a (dare I say it?) screwdriver to force the door thingy and a paperclip in case I had to "jimmy" the lock! Risking jail time for two cheap dime-store goldfish? Yep. Let me look at the judge and jury and accuser who would actually have me go to jail for this. I want to look into their eyes.
So, I check to see if the front is open. No. The backdoor? No. I start fiddling with the door handle and all trying to see whether I could push the "thingy" back in and open the door, when the door just opens! It had obviously been violated before and wasn't really secured. I'm not even sure if it was actually locked......
Anyway, I get the fish, take them home and immediately get some goldfish-koi food from my neighbor across the street and I feed them The I get out my old aquarium and stuff and start setting it up for them and the next day, they're in their new home in my basement and they are so happy and healthy now!
And they seem to be a pair, or at least great pals. One is agressive and kinda dominates the other, always grabbing the most food and stuff, being the "topdog". "He's" also a little bit bigger than the quieter one. They stay right together most of the time, a school of two, and have this neat way of keeping their tailfin touching the other . Sweet.
I never did hear from the homeowner, not that it matters now! And the old aquarium is still in there. Haven't seen any "Have you seen these goldfish?" posters in the neighborhood or anything, so..................
Viva la revolution!
Robert.
Oh Robert! Thank you so much for such a wonderful story! Can I share it with others? It just shows that there are people out there who care about the lesser critter of whom we are supposed to have dominion and take care of.
Thaks for making my day!
Robert, you are a man after my own heart. Does anyone
mint a medal with a goldfish on it ? If I ever find one, I will
send it off to you post haste. God bless you for your kindness
to a pair of helpless creatures.
Hey, check out this balckberry lily pic I took today. I don't know if it is the bud, or if it is the spent flower. Cool the way it twists, though....It is to the left of the flower.
Here is another one. I think they are buds that are opening becuse the bud next to one of the flowers has a slight twist to it.
Bama, sorry to break it to you, but I think those twisties are spent flowers not buds :-(
I like the way they do that too and only see it on the old flowers.
Well, I know it might be a bit "overboard" to some people to get so worked up over two little fishies, but one acts on what is at hand. Their little sweetness spoke to me. I had to do it.
Thanks mahnot and BamaBelle for appreciating my little effort, and you can share my story with others if you like.
Cheers!
Robert.
Ah well...spent flower or bud...it is still neat looking!
Yes, they are. Pretty soon all those twists will be gone, replaced by green pods that will dry and crack open to reveal the shiny, black berries.
And those black berries resemble blackberries, hence their name: Blackberry lily. Quite ornamental, and good in dried arrangements.
Rick
And they are so easy to grow and you can store them for *years* in the freezer.
Robert.
Cool...just hope the bees and such have been busy pollinating them....
Go out there and help them. LOL.
My cousin planted her corn in two short rows and she'd go out everyday and shake the tassels down over the silks.
Her Silver Queen was awesome.
Robert.
OMG! I love Silver Queen corn. That is what is normally grown around here. Lived in the Midwest for seven years and they take great pride in their corn....it can't hold a candle to the Silver Queen they grow down here. Unfortuantely, the drought got most of the corn this year. Next year will be better. Even so, it has been an awesome first summer back 'home'. I've eaten my weight in peaches, tomatoes, and peas.....
You will get plenty of seed without helping any, as each flower produces many seeds. But in my experience, not every flower produces, which is fine because there are so many. I have never tried helping out in pollenation, but if you want the fullest sprays for drying, it could be beneficial.
Rick
News
from the horticultural taxonomist
the Blackberry Lilly ( bellamcanda chinensis)
is now officially classed as Iris Domestica
(American iris society July 26)
Oh those taxonomists!
What will they call it next, I wonder? :-P
Robert.
I saw that too - somewhere. But nothing was said about Pardanthopsis, and then what about Pardancanda?
Strangers without candy?
Robert.
ROFL! You have a sick sense of humor..I like that in a friend.