Pink Flowering Almond
Prunus glandulosa 'Rosea Plena'
(PROO-nus) (glan-doo-LOW-suh)
Rosaceae
This is probably the weakest growing shrub I know of. Each year it gets hit with some sort of infection that makes it look hideous. Sometimes it is toast as early as June 15th. When it is on it is beautiful and this year it is on. It might have helped that a couple of years ago I cut it back hard, with kind of a live or die attitude, and it threw out some new stems. This year I have treated it Bayer All-in-One Flower Care to see if that helps. I don’t mean to disparage this plant but it needs kind of an out of the way place that it can fade into after blooming. It never has covered up the air conditioner it was supposed to and I do wish I had planted it elsewhere but now that it is out in bloom (probably the heaviest bloom I have seen on it in 15 years) all is forgiven.
Princess Haiku, who has a cool blog, tagged me to write 5 reasons ‘Why I blog’. I am not sure where to link this to so maybe she will be along to help. It was easy to come up with 2-3 reasons and a little harder to come up with the others. It was interesting to me to have to stop and think why I do this. This is what I came up with.
Five reasons ‘Why I Blog’:
1. The money and glamour, silly (just kidding). The number one reason would have to be that I want to gain more knowledge of the Plant Kingdom. I have been working with plants since I was a young boy and I have learned a lot. That knowledge is dwarfed by what I don’t know. Combining digital photography and plant research has been wonderful for me. Writing about the new knowledge has been an excellent way for me to remember things. I read gardening books and magazines and read things on the internet but Blogging has made it a kind of an assignment and forces me to seek out the information on that day, where it might have easy in the past to say, “Oh, I will look that up later”. If it is something that I am writing about that day it is looked up on that day. As funny as the Blogging for money angle sounds I have picked up a couple of gardening jobs and sold some prints.
2. Since I am a gardener I like to do what most gardeners do, share. Weather it is trading a few slips of Daylilies or sharing a favorite cultivar’s name it is all about sharing. It always surprises me that so many people have an interest in plants, flowers and gardening. I love their varying degrees of passion about it. Since I get to grow a lot of plants that a normal person wouldn’t I thought I would share some information on my results. Quite a few posts in my blog are of plants that I am cultivating and I try to add a little about ‘life in the garden’ type of stories without being boring. I know I am living what a lot of people would consider a fantasy life, being in the garden all day, and I try to shed a little light on it. So garden Blogging has allowed me in some ways to go global with my sharing. People come from all over the world and that is fun, and in my own small way try to share what American gardening is and some of the plants that we use.
3. I actually like the structure of having to do something everyday. My quiet moments that I select a picture and look up some information on the plant are worth a lot to me. It is probably something I wouldn’t normally do if I didn’t have a blog.
4. Blogging has gotten me out talking with other bloggers and reading all the fun stuff that they post. I have been growing Crabapple Trees for years but never realized that they were fragrant. I read on a gardening blog that Crabapples were fragrant and sure enough marched up to one the next day to smell it. Gadzooks, it was heavenly! So that is a good example of why I like Blogging.
5. This blog has accomplished one thing for me that has been a truly bright thing. It has me out there shooting trying to get something to share. There have been numerous times since I started this blog that I picked up my camera and said “I would really like to take a couple of pictures to share on the Internet today”. I am conscious of not putting to much pressure on myself about getting a shot. My pictures are much better when I am relaxed and just observing but having a blog has definitely got me out shooting more. The whole idea was to take a picture the day before and use it the next. Obviously I knew I would be dipping into my archives but that is okay too, it allows me to share some of my favorite pictures I have taken over the years.
The flowers on the Flowering Almond start out white and go to pink which gives it a nice two-toned appearance.
6 comments:
A long time ago one of our neighbor excitedly told us that she had purchased a flowering almond. So we waited a year and it bloomed. We were mightly unimpressed. I guess the bush was so small and the flowers were single making it a forgettable plant. In a year it succumbed to the weather and was gone. Unfortunately the woman left the dried up twigs for another couple of years, hoping I guess that it would set out new growth. The one you photographed looks much better - the flowers resemble the ones of the Kwanzan cherry.
Hi , Your picture certainly dont disappoint and i think what you said about why you blog is why i do, i have only been doing it just over 3 weeks and it is like the world is your next door neighbour.
Cheers mark
Great post.The crabapple story made me laugh.Gardening is about all your senses.I have tried before to describe how a plant looks, feels, and smells if it does.The fun is in sharing that, or reading about it in someone elses blog.You must secretly like the flowering almond to have kept it for fifteen years.Od do you live in hope every year?
Ki,
You are right about the Kwanzan resemblance. It is pretty when in flower.
Mark, Hi. Keep thinking global.
Snappy, Thanks for visiting again. I sometimes don't remember not just to look at the flower. About keeping the Almond, I get paid to grow some of this stuff, whether I want to or not. I don't think I would have it in my garden.
The moon is gone.
She fled as dawn approached.
Dawn as a slowly opening eye.
White sea birds skimming over the water,
looking for an early morning snack.
The mirror brightens.
From a blood moon at dawn to a mirror
reflecting waking life...
#######
I woke her to take the moon.
Her campaign was swift and terrible.
Metallic and fierce.
Glaring up in the twilight.
But the moon was both implacable and unreachable
and in the end the war against the moon failed.
As dawn rose slowly from her bed, the moon slipped away.
But in the end, all that was lost,
was a little sleep....
################
1 June 2007
Burning Moon
Moon Fire
Blood Moon
smoked Moon
Smoky Moon
Smouldering Moon
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
4 June 2007
After the storm, my mine cleared.
And a high wind arose and blew the tropics north.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
running quartz crystals through a blender.
sand through your engines.
bubble in your bays.
estuaries reaching out toward forbidden seas...
sand through your eyes.
Thank you for the information on the flowering almond. From the pictures I have seen, I have fallen in love with it; however, I knew nothing of how it fared in the garden (or covering up the AC unit). I think I will admire the pictures, but plant something else. =)
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