Mexican Sunflower

Mexican Sunflower

Tithonia rotundifolia

(ti-THO-nee-a) (ro-tun-dih-FOH-lee-uh)

Wordless Wednesday

Ballerina False Sunflower

False Sunflower

Heliopsis helianthoides 'Ballerina'

(hee-lee-OP-sis) (hee-lee-an-THOY-dees)

Synonyms: Rough Heliopsis, Orange Sunflower

This seems to be a really nice cultivar of False Sunflower. We haven’t tried growing it but I love having the regular species in the garden. It is one of the last perennials to have a really solid bloom this time of the year. Our patch of Heliopsis has begun to spread but hasn’t warranted control yet. The plants have a nice way of growing around and through things without being annoying.

I know its Monday but I wanted to add a nice flower as a thank you to all the people that have been following and commenting on this blog. You can see it is a beautiful fancy Dahlia that could have easily earned a post of its own.

Laciniated Dahlia ‘Hannah Baker’

                         

False Sunflower

False Sunflower

Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra 'Summer Nights'

(hee-lee-OP-sis)

Synonyms: Rough Heliopsis, Orange Sunflower

This plant seems to be a very reliable mid and late summer perennial. It has returned for several years and has increased in a way that is manageable. I often forget about it until it bursts out in bloom during a time when almost nothing else is. The deer have pretty much let it alone and that is another big plus. This is a tall perennial that can reach up to 5 feet. I have noticed that the weather can cause it to get a little floppy but it seems to throw it off and just keep blooming in a compressed state. The stems are a nice burgundy color, which is an added bonus.

Hardy Sunflower

 

Hardy Sunflower

Helianthus sp.

(hee-lee-AN-thus) (AN-yoo-us)

This beauty is already blooming along with some Asters and mums. Fall is upon us. No, just kidding, but some flowers seem to be pushing the envelope a little. Helianthus is a reliable plant that can brighten up the fall border.

We finally got some rain yesterday and even though it was a thunderstorm its copious amounts of rain were welcome. Everything seems much refreshed outside this morning and our little dry spell seems over for now.

Few-leaf Sunflower

Few-leaf Sunflower

Helianthus occidentalis

(hee-lee-AN-thus) (ok-sih-den-TAY-liss)

Synonyms: Helianthus dowellianus, Naked Stem Sunflower, Western Sunflower

Wordless Wednesday 

False Sunflower

False Sunflower
Heliopsis
(hee-lee-OP-sis)

Hairy False Goldenaster

Hairy False Goldenaster
Heterotheca villosa var. scabra
(het-er-oh-THEEK-uh) (vil-OH-suh)

It’s not too often I come across a flower around here that I have no idea what it is. This was one I spotted last week and was happy it had a tag for identification purposes. The bright, clear yellow was nice to see on a somewhat cloudy day. The plants were about 2.5 feet tall and the foliage had kind of a velvety down on them. I want to be sure to announce that this free seeder is considered invasive and is also considered a weed in some places. We could all use a few more weeds like this! This plant is good for xeriscaping as it is drought tolerant. If you don’t want any seedlings just deadhead the flowers to control it. This flower is mostly native to the Western United States and Canada.

Since it is Sunday come join us at Today’s Flowers .

Bonus Picture!


False Sunflower
Heliopsis
(hee-lee-OP-sis)

Not sure exactly what this flower is but it seemed like Heliopsis is a good guess. It was also lighting up the cloudy landscape.

Summer Nights False Sunflower

False Sunflower
Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra 'Summer Nights'
(hee-lee-OP-sis)
Synonyms: Rough Heliopsis, Orange Sunflower

This flower seems to have a lot of different monikers. It really has a bold color and the flowers are nicely sized. It is not nearly as big as a traditional sunflower but the proportions seem about right. ‘Summer Nights’ does get a little tall and can flop but a couple of well timed pinches can help with that. The leaves and stems in the spring come out with a nice purplish tint. This photo was taken last week when the temperature was about 100 degrees F. A true summer flower the Heliopsis didn’t seem to mind.

I have a big day planned as we are heading down to Manhattan to do some planting and then to Pound Ridge. I have said a little prayer to the parking god to ease me in this morning. It has cooled down somewhat, which is very agreeable.

Ceriman

Ceriman
Monstera deliciosa
(mon-STER-uh) (de-lis-ee-OH-suh)
Synonyms: Windowleaf, Split-leaf Philodendron, Mexican Breadfruit, Philodendron pertusum, Monstera lennea

This beauty was growing inside the conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden . It is an amazing set of buildings that can easily send you on a journey past the gritty streets that surround it. Pretty much everything was in great condition at the garden. I didn’t stay too long as all the walking made me tired.

Huge and bold foliage of the Monstera

My day started out getting all my gear ready. This is a list of what I took:

D700 DSLR Camera
D70s DSLR Camera
80-200mm Nikon 2.8 lens
50mm Nikon 1.8 lens
24mm Sigma 1.8 lens
Camera Bag Tamrac (I bought for $10 at a tag sale)
Ipod filled with new music

I purposely left out the two lenses I use the most the 60mm/2.8, and 105mm/2.8 (both Nikon). The thought was to try and see things a little differently than my “crutch” lenses. Although I missed both of them. I put the 80-200 on the D70s and the 50 on the D700. One good thing about the 50mm is it is very inconspicuous. After gearing up I drove the 25 miles to the train station. Metro-North trains come a lot closer but the Katonah station is nice and it is easy to park. Soon I was zipping by the towns of Westchester County like Hawthorne, Pleasantville, Chappaqua and White Plains. I had a playlist for Selena Gomez and Christina Grimmie’s new CDs. Both of which are excellent.

The train left me at Grand Central so I went into the subway and got on the 6 train going downtown. After changing onto the ‘Q’ train at Union Square I was headed out to Coney Island. That's when the memory washed over me. When I was 15 or 16 I was supposed to go to Coney Island with the girl I liked then. Her name was Sandy and she was beautiful. The trip was all planned and at the last minute Sandy backed out. She blamed her mother, which knowing the woman was probably true. Sadly I never made it out to Brooklyn that day. Sandy and I did end up going out for a short while. She was a sweetheart.

As the train rumbled through the dark tunnels every once in a while breaking into brilliant sunshine on the elevated sections it cut across the heart of Brooklyn I had sometime for quiet reflection. Was I some how trying to relive the trip not taken 33 years ago? What happened to Sandy? All this was accomplice by the discography of The Byrds I had loaded unto my Ipod last week. I was struck by the lyrics from the old country song, “Roger McGuinn had a 12 string guitar. It was like nothing I'd ever heard.” His 12 string does have an amazing sound. During my contemplation with the sounds of the 1960’s ringing in my ears a beautiful woman came on the train and sat next to me. I almost asked if her name was Sandy but instead just sat quietly admiring her beauty.

Soon it was last stop the Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue station, which is modern and architecturally pleasing. I made my way to the boardwalk and marveled at all the new rides and some of the old ones. I also visited the New York Aquarium whose entrance is right off the boardwalk. After some pictures and viewing the scenery on the beach it was back on the train to the Prospect Park stop to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Upon leaving the station the garden entrance was about a block away.

It was a beautiful summer day. The best thing was there wasn’t a lot of humidity, which can ruin summer around here. After visiting the Lotus Pool, Annual garden, Café, Conservatory and rock garden I was done. Back to the subway for the long ride to the 42nd Street/Time Square station. After that I jumped on the Grand Central Shuttle and caught the train to Westchester. Over all it was a great day. Two world-class attractions in one day. I will be posting some more pictures during the week.

Come join us at Today’s Flowers . Flowers from all over the world.

Sunday means bonus picture. Shot with the 80-200mm lens and D700. It was easy to do a back portrait when the flower is 7 or 8 feet off the ground. It is one of the Hardy type of Sunflowers but I didn’t get the name.

Large Sunflowers

Large Sunflowers
Oil on Wood, 1928
Emil Nolde (1867 –1956)

As a change of pace here is a painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. The subject and amazing brushstrokes prompted me to photograph this painting. Mr. Nolde was considered to be one of the first Expressionists and often used bold colors in his floral works. His flower paintings were said to be based on his love for the art of Vincent Van Gogh.

It is really difficult to photograph paintings in a museum although the Moma does not really have any restrictions other than no flash and no pictures in certain galleries. Getting the angle of the lens ‘flat’ on the canvas is the hardest thing for me. If you don’t, you get all sorts of distortion on the perspective. Some of those can be worked out in Photoshop but you basically have to have close to right in the camera. This photo was shot with my all time favorite lens, the Nikon 60mm/2.8 macro and the D700 camera

The weather finally broke yesterday after a couple of days of 100+ degrees. A line of violent storms rolled through at about 5 pm. We were lucky at home not to have much damage but several neighboring towns had a lot of damage including trees down, no power and roads closed. While it is still humid here at least we won’t have to deal with heat. The forecast calls for a much more comfortable 81 degrees today. Just in time for the weekend.

Perennial Sunflower

Perennial Sunflower
Helianthus sp.
(hee-lee-AN-thus)

Central Park Sunflower

Central Park Sunflower
Helianthus annuus
(hee-lee-AN-thus) (AN-yoo-us)

This bold fellow was blooming in Central Park a few weeks ago. The Sunflowers did really well considering that we didn’t really get that much sun around here this summer. They add so much to the summer and fall garden. This flower, which I am assuming was a cultivar, really had nice grayish blue green foliage. The size of the flower was large but not really over powering. It was just about the size.

Wow, was it windy here yesterday. We also got a half inch of rain before the winds arrived. I heard of a peak gust of 46 mph (around 75 kph) but think it was more like in the 30 mph range where I was. There were several roads closed on the way home and numerous power outages that made driving a little difficult. We will be picking sticks for a long while.

This shot was a try at recreating the black and white Sunflower that was posted here in September. In some ways it worked and in other ways it didn’t.


Work has been pretty busy and today we are making the big Chrysanthemum planting (150). The other thing we have been doing is a transplanting rampage. Since a lot of our gardens are starting to mature there are plants that I have resisted moving in the past that have simply gotten too big. They have to move now. Once we started it has gotten to be interesting. Having a lot of space to try some new things and some mature plants to plug some holes has been great. This probably should have been done years ago but I tend to hang on to the way things are in the garden. A bold stroke is sometimes needed and can bring about a nice feeling of change.

Monochrome Sunflower

Black and White Sunflower
Helianthus annuus
(hee-lee-AN-thus) (AN-yoo-us)

Chrysanthemum ‘Colina Orange’

Hardy Mum
Chrysanthemum ‘Colina Orange’

Out of all of the mums that we planted this year ‘Colina Orange’ was the best. There are several factors that go into that assessment and remember that it is just a local observation. These mums bloomed the longest and best of any of the about 20 cultivars that we used. They went on for many weeks in both containers and in the ground. The color was a nice shade of orange and that seemed to fit the season well. One plant that I had at home was mixed with a ‘Colina Red’ Chrysanthemum and that was just perfect.

‘Colina Orange’ is a mid-season blooming Belgian type of mum. That is to say it started blooming in mid-season and lasted almost as long as the late-season ones. The flowers didn’t look bad after they faded. My only complaint would be that the flowers were a little small but that is minor (can’t have everything, you know). This year for the first time in a long time I decided to try save some of the mums. ‘Colina Orange ’ was one of the cultivars selected for the over wintering test. The mums were removed from their containers and planted around the second week of November. We used wood chips and leaves to almost completely cover the plant. They will have to be removed in the spring. ‘Blizzard’ was another one I tried to save. Let’s see if they are really ‘Hardy Mums’. As a gardener I have to optimistic or I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning but there is a tinge of pessimism creeping in here with regards to the mums.

This picture was taken in late fall and kind of represents the depth of field I would like to get on more of my flower pictures. The flower is Willow leafed Sunflower (Helianthus salicifolius 'First Light'). It did really well in the garden and ‘First Light’ is a nice cultivar that was developed by Dr. Keith Hammett of New Zealand. It stays more compact and shorter than the species.


What a crazy weather day we had yesterday. If anyone is reading this from the eastern United States you know what I mean. There were several inches of rain and the temperature was hovering at 34 degrees. We dodged a real bullet because about 20 miles north of here there was a pretty big ice storm that knocked out the power and caused a lot of tree limbs to fall. After a cold weekend it is going to be in the 50’s next week, which will be perfect as a couple of customers have called with a few items that we forgot to take care of for the winter. We are on a very limited part-time schedule now.

Today I have to deliver the last of the holiday plants we give out as presents to the people whose gardens we take care of. Just two 12-inch Poinsettias (a ‘Burgundy’ and a ‘Vision of Grandeur’) and an Orchid. The Poinsettias are huge and really full. We bought them at Chadds Ford Greenhouses in Pennsylvania. It was a very cool place (they don’t have a website or I would link to it) that had a really nice assortment of Poinsettia cultivars and other seasonal plants. I wish they were closer I would definitely buy plants from them.

Willow-leaved Sunflower

Willow-leaved Sunflower
Helianthus salicifolius
(hee-lee-AN-thus) (sal-iss-ih-FOH-lee-us)

This picture was taken in October of 2005. It turned up while I was trying to organize some of the photos on my hard drive. The same patch of Willow-leaved Sunflower bloomed beautifully this year too. It is an easy perennial plant to grow and we haven’t done anything to it other than taking a few small pieces off the side to spread out the patch a little bit. You don’t really notice this plant in the garden until it starts blooming. That is really late in the season here in Connecticut and then it really shines. It flowers for quite a long time and can even take a few frosts. Next year I am going to plant it with another long lasting perennial, Aster frikartii.

It has been really cold for this time of year the last couple of days. Kind of like mid to late December. In a few of the more southern gardens that I take care of there was still a few annuals and late perennials blooming and looking good. Not anymore! We still have a lot of things to do so I hope it warms up a little bit next week.

Due to blog scraping by unauthorized sites the feed for this site is again going to the short version.

Jerusalem Artichoke

Jerusalem Artichoke
Helianthus tuberosus

This plant can be a potential weed in the garden. I happened onto a huge stand in full bloom at the NYBG last weekend. The insects were loving the flowers and I was able to get pretty close. Jerusalem Artichoke has no ties to the city of Jerusalem and is not an artichoke (good name for the plant, huh?). It is a species of Sunflower native to the Eastern United States that Native Americans cultivated for food. I have never eaten it except for some pasta made from the tuber but it is widely cultivated and sold.

This Honeybee was busy and didn’t mind me sneaking in for a close shot with the 60mm.


People have been clamoring :lol: for pictures of Juno the new puppy. She has been a wonderful addition to the family and has fit right in. Here are a few snaps of her.


This is a goofy shot of her when she decided she wanted to play with my camera strap.


Ruby Tuesday has taken a maternal interest in Juno. She watches over her when they are not playing together. They have really hit it off. It is funny because Ruby is a 75 pounder and her head is as big as Juno's whole body.

Dwarf Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia speciosa 'Viette's Little Suzy'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (spee-see-OH-suh)

A couple of flowers before we leave for North Carolina. This is dwarf and hardy form of the Black eyed Susan. It grows to 12 to 18 inches tall and is nice for the front of the border. This was quite a patch of flowers as this picture only shows half of them.

This is another shot of the flower I posted on Wednesday. I couldn’t say anything about it because it was Wordless Wednesday. It is a cultivar of False Sunflower named ‘Venus’. I found them to be very photogenic. There are nice to have in the garden since they are fairly tall but don’t need staking and they are drought tolerant. The large 3 to 5 flowers are considered semi-double.

False Sunflower
Heliopsis helianthoides 'Venus'
(hee-lee-OP-sis) (hee-lee-an-THOY-dees)
Synonyms: Rough Heliopsis, Orange Sunflower, Ox-Eye

False Sunflower

False Sunflower
(Heliopsis)
Wordless Wednesday

Scarlet Begonias and Sunflower Abstract

ABC Wednesday and
Wordless Wednesday

Sawtooth Sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus)

Sawtooth Sunflower
Helianthus grosseserratus
(hee-lee-AN-thus) (gros-ser-AY-tus)


This is one of those plants that I have seen before but really didn’t know the name or much about it. This flower was growing in the Rock Garden at the New York Botanical garden. Well it was newly planted in the area next to the Rock Garden. This plant is tall! With this specimen reaching about 10 feet. It is a little rangy looking but the flowers are beautiful. If I had a small garden I probably wouldn’t consider this one as it is just too big but it would make a nice back of the border or mass planting in the larger garden. The Willow-leaved Sunflower (Helianthus salicifolius) is a better choice for smaller gardens.

The Sawtooth Sunflower is distinct from some of other Sunflowers with its glaucous, glabrous stems and thin serrated and slightly folded leaves. While native to the Midwestern US it has spread through the Eastern Us and was introduced to Canada. Here is a link to a distribution map:

efloras.org


It likes to grow in slightly moist rich soils but can tolerate even dry gravelly soil. Plants that grow in dense thickets are usually shorter and more compact. Single plants can reach 12 feet tall and are hardy to USDA Zone 3.


Like the post I made the other day with the Elm leaves here are some Guava (Psidium guajava) leaves from the same ‘roll’ as the Sunflower. This picture was shot inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the NYBG. As much as I try to take pictures inside there they hardly ever come out especially in the section the Guava was growing which is cool and very moist. Here is some more information about Guava:

Perdue.edu

Finally, in response to Ki’s post about hot sauces of October 11th here is the rack of them I saw in Santa Fe, NM. This was about half of the rack.