Minnesota’s state flower

By Crystal | July 24, 2014

Long-overdue posting of showy lady’s slippers from a late-June drive through the countryside looking for wildflowers.

This is an enormous clump of at least 50 of these pretty orchids on the side of a quiet road in Mahnomen County in northwest Minnesota:

Showy lady’s slipper is Minnesota’s state flower and is on my car’s license plate, a Critical Habitat specialty plate that supports the state Department of Natural Resources.

I didn’t notice until looking at the pictures after returning home, but some of the photos make it look like the flowers have faces — yellow eyes over a wide-open mouth:

What a treat to see this beautiful flower in the wild.

Flowers for the 4th of July

By Crystal | July 4, 2014

These purple Star of Beauty flowers look like fireworks.

Plant source: Gertens

Celebrating pollinators

By Crystal | June 21, 2014

There’s been so much rain this spring, I haven’t had many chances to see bees yet. But in honor of Pollinator Week, I’m sharing some of my favorite photos of bees, butterflies, and moths from gardens past:

spiderwort pollinator - bee — Spiderwort

autumn joy sedum pollinator - bee — “Autumn joy” sedum

sunflower pollinators - bees — Sunflower

new england aster pollinator - moth — New England aster

butterflyweed pollinator - monarch butterfly — Fittingly, a monarch enjoying the butterflyweed

bee balm pollinator - bumblebee — Likewise, a bumblebee climbing into bee balm

A windblown end to the peonies

By Crystal | June 18, 2014

Our beautiful white peonies with flecks of magenta − “festiva maxima” − grew quickly this year.

They were nearly as tall as I am, but before we could get a picture to compare, we’ve had storm after storm for days. Lots of rain, rain, and more rain − but the wind really took its toll.

This was the first year we had planned ahead and set up a support cage, which worked well until the weekend. Now, all of the stems except one are bent at the top of the cage. Next year, we’ll need to find a taller one.