Thursday, July 26, 2012

Oranges and Lemons Blanket Flower




Blanket Flower
Gaillardia aristata 'Oranges & Lemons'
(gay-LAR-dee-uh) (a-ris-TAH-tuh)
Synonyms: Common Blanketflower

For the first time in a long time I saw this flower for sale. It was quite popular for awhile and then dropped completely off the radar. People must have realized that it is not really a perennial and that hurt sales. Personally I have planted a lot of these and not once have they made it through the winter and returned. It could be that the Connecticut climate is too harsh I am not really sure but I think winter drainage maybe the key to its cultivation. The color scheme on this flower is beautiful and the plant grows nicely but it irks me that they sell it as a perennial. That makes it a very expensive annual and in my opinion not worth it.

Yesterday I saw the most humongous Dragon Fly at work. Since the house is located near and partially in a swamp they get a lot of strange bugs and I had never seen a Dragon Fly that big before. He was having a little problem flying and a yellow jacket was bothering him. He fought off the yellow jacket and eventually flew away. His head was close to penny sized and the body was about 3.5 inches long. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me so you are going to have to take my word on it.

1 comment:

Ruby said...

very beautiful blend of orange. Great picture!