Black-Eyed Susan Vine

Black-Eyed Susan Vine
Thunbergia alata
(thun-BER-jee-uh) (a-LAY-tuh)

This is the second year I have been growing this vine. It is doing well again this season even after the irrigation system that waters the containers went crazy and kept it completely submerged for about 2 1/2 weeks before I noticed it. It seemed to shrug off the flood with a few yellow leaves and is back to growing like crazy. It was bought with both this orange type and a yellow flowering variety in the same pot. I am going to have figure out how to add more height to stake that is in there now or attach some sort of trellis to the pot as it is just winding around itself now. Black-Eyed Susan Vine likes to be in full sun and well-drained soil. It is a perennial in mild climates. My friend tells me it can grow indoors over the winter in a sunny window. I will have to try that.

This is from the wedding I attended over the weekend. The photographer was kind enough not to mind other photographers when she was setting up the shots. I hope she puts up a website soon for her photography as she has a lot of talent. I got to see some of the wedding pictures she took before I left Maine and they were pretty amazing especially with the equipment and conditions considerations she had to deal with. All of the Black and White pictures on this site (not that many) are taken with my Nikon Coolpix 8400 set to Monochrome.

Squash Blossom

Squash Blossom

While archiving the photos of my trip to the Queens Botanical garden this fall I came across a few photos that I am posting today. I was at the garden on September 8th, which I guess you could call late summer. It will be fun to see if the construction is done when I return this year. It is an great garden and if you are interested you can read my previous post on the trip and my impressions.


This sign was out in front of the Senior Garden and when I saw it I couldn’t help but think that is a way a lot of gardeners feel about their garden.

Since it has come to my attention, through the web statistics, that a lot of people are visiting because I mentioned that there was a wedding at the garden the day that I went. Here is a picture for those people. The wedding area is closed off from the rest of the garden and looked beautiful from over the fence. I guess this was a little voyeuristic of me to shoot a couple of pictures but the bride was beautiful, radiant really, and the violin player and crowd was something that that begged a few snaps.


Here is a link to the wedding page of the Queens Botanical Garden for those interested:
click here
You can easily navigate to the garden’s home page from there.

I am posting late since I had to take Molly to the doctor. She is coming back well from the surgery but the diagnosis of her tumor was bad. We are investigating some treatment options for her now but it doesn’t look good.