Thursday, July 10, 2008

Inedible Fruit

Wow, you guys are good! I believe the "weed" with orange pods is indeed a Chinese Lantern plant, or husk tomato. I like the term Chinese lantern, because that is exactly what the pods look like. I've checked inside a few of them, and most have a very tiny fruit inside, and many are shriveled, so I doubt we'll be harvesting any.

The white-flowering shrub looks to be a black chokeberry. Mine is much bigger than described on the sites I found online, but I think my bush is pretty old. It is supposed to get pretty black/purplish berries in the fall, but the ones on my bush have already shriveled and dried. Again, I think it's because it's a pretty old bush. Apparently you can make jams from the berries, but they don't taste good right off the bush.

At least I have some veggies in my garden coming up. I saw some pea pods on a few plants, and I have some green tomatoes. I saw one flower on my watermelon plant, so I don't know if it'll grow and ripen in time to eat this year. We planted a lot of other seeds, but most were more than a few years old, so we didn't know if any of them would grow. Next year we'll be able to plan more in advance and hopefully do a better job!

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Success! and Thanks

To those of you who suggested Sweet William for the white flower, thank you! It is indeed a dianthus barbatus. I found a picture online that is identical to my plant. I also was able to identify my pink flower. It is a dianthus armeria, called Deptford Pink. Woohoo, I love solving a mystery!

Ok, now that that felt so good, let's do it again ;-)

Here is a bush that flowered behind my north-facing chimney, it is mostly shade there. It bloomed at the end of May. I'm thinking it might be a kind of honeysuckle?

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And this is a plant that spread like crazy once it came up, so very weedy. I guess it is a kind of ground cover since it spread so easily, but it is tall, over a foot high. The white flowers have fused petals, and grow beneath the leaves. It grew in a very shady corner, it gets almost no direct sun. It started flowering in early June, and it is still getting new flowers even while the seeds on the older plants are ripening.

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After about a month, they developed these pods, which are turning a cool orange color:

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When you pull open a pod, there is one seed inside:

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So, flower detectives, what do you think?

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

More Mystery Flowers

I have some more pictures of flowers from my yard that I can't figure out. Maybe some of you can find out what the names are?

Here is the first one:

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I only have the one plant, it grows in mostly shade, and it bloomed in early June.

And here is one I have blooming now:

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and a close up of one bloom

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Any help would be appreciated!