Sunflowers Archives

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Barb — 3 Comments

Sunflower Summer: Squeezing Out the Goodness

This is most definitely the summer of the sunflower. We have had full bloom for so long now and the last of the varieties has started to bloom.

The Lemon Sunflowers are just radiant and the bees are happy to have a new snack spot. We have been cutting them and bringing them inside to enjoy on the kitchen table.

The colorful sunflowers are amazing to look at up close. The seeds are so dark black and the petals look as if someone painted them on with watercolors…deep brown and burgandy.

Sometimes I go through a phase where I am all about words….writing, talking, sharing. Then there are times when it seems like things are just in pictures….colors, images, impressions. I think I am in one of those times right now and I just take hundreds of photos, am attracted to video, and need to make sketches and watercolors of everything I see. There just is not enough time to capture it all…..I know I will cycle around again and be ready to write more about my thoughts. My brain is certainly thinking all the time and there are many things I would like to share but in the meantime you will forgive my lack of writing and just enjoy my images instead.

I will be full of images soon…..one last hike at Yosemite coming up this weekend with a friend, a girl’s weekend. One last real month in the colors and liveliness of the summer garden. There are stacks of books waiting to be organized and enjoyed as we prepare for our homeschool year but they will wait until the last drop of summer is squeezed out of the season.

Enjoy your August day!

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Sunflower Garden – July Newsletter Grid Study

Our Sunflower Garden July 17, 2011

Sunflowers are the theme of our garden this year….as anticipated. We planted our seeds on May 10th and they started blooming on July 16th. That is a long time to wait but so worth the time and effort! Now with the July Newsletter focus on sunflowers using the Nature Study Grid and notebooking page, we are slowing down to do some careful observations. This is also made easy by the fact that we are participating in the Great Sunflower Project and counting bees.

Here are the first of our blooms.

Sunflower with lots of pollen!

This is actually not one of the seeds that we planted but it popped up under the birdfeeder. They are a perfect complement to our little backyard feeder garden.

From Renee’s Garden Seeds – Royal Flush. I love the watercolor like colors in this bloom.

Here is another one from Renee’s Garden – Chocolate Cherry. Amazing color in the garden!

I think this is the third seed from Renee’s Garden – Van Gogh.

We found this spider crawling on a big sunflower last week…..he sure blends in.

Here is another image from the volunteer sunflowers around the birdfeeder. If you look carefully, you can see that these are actually two different kinds of sunflowers.

Another bee favorite in our yard is the coneflower. They are rather tall this year and always full of buzzing bees. Coneflowers are on the list of bee attractive plants that you can use as part of the Great Sunflower Project this summer.

How about that bee? He is in our bee balm and loving it. I decided this is a plant that I need to add to more of my flower garden next year.

We have been busy learning some new things and making lots of detailed observations using all of our sunflowers. How about your family? Have you done your July Newsletter sunflower study? I look forward to seeing your entries in the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Barb — 8 Comments

Growing An Artist Garden Takes Patience – Weekly Update

It looks like it is almost time! As I tour my garden this week I notice that all the blooming plants have buds just waiting to burst out in color. This is the first of our sunflowers….sprouted up under the birdfeeder all on its own. What joy to find this waiting for me this morning! Promises of more are all over the garden and I will soon be using THIS tutorial to make some oil pastel artwork. I am thinking of inviting some friends over to join me and to spend an afternoon creating sunflower art.

The Bee Balm has filled an area in the butterfly garden and can see this going on a canvas as well. Wait until you see it in full bloom! The reds and the fluffiness remind me of butterfly’s wings.

Here is my sunflower box….it is bursting with tall healthy plants and since I mixed the seed varieties it will be interesting to see the color palette once it starts to show its blooms.

The zinnias are going to be amazing soon! I love zinnias and we will fill up vase after vase of them to put on the kitchen table. This year we will capture them with paints too!

Daisies are a new addition to our flower garden. I have visions of a whole box filled with them as the years go by….just like in Pride and Prejudice where Jane and Elizabeth are out in the garden cutting baskets of flowers. I can dream can’t I?

Coneflowers at last! This the first real flower blooming but there are about a hundred ready to bloom. I will cut some for vases and use some in a still life just as soon as I get my self motivated.

Our trumpet vines are blooming around the edges and the hummingbirds have moved from the feeders to the flowers….they must taste good because there are a number of birds that stop by each day to buzz in and out of the blossoms. It is so fascinating to watch as they hover over the vines and sip the nectar.

Couldn’t resist including an image of the Three Sisters Garden in the early morning light…delightful. Pretty soon I will not be able to walk between the rows because the plants are growing so much. I will keep you posted on the progress of the section of the garden….right now the most striking part of the garden is the HUGE leaves on the pumpkins.

There you have our garden update for the week….mostly about the Artist Garden and my plans for using the plants and flowers as subjects for my artwork. Soon…..stay tuned.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Planning a Garden and Watching it Grow

So as I walked through my garden this week I realized that having a garden is like watching an awakening of a new life. When we plant a seed, we know in our head that it will produce a particular kind of plant. After a period of time we know that it will grow into a flower or veggie. But have you stopped lately to consider just why it does that? That life comes from somewhere…it is not mere mechanics. I choose to give all the glory to the Master Gardener in heaven. Here are some of His creations that have come to life in my yard.

Sometimes I choose a plant because of its color, sometimes its fragrance, and sometimes its texture. My new Sage has it all…another bee loving plant in our remodeled frontyard. I love this plant and I hope it continues to grow right where it is in the middle of my walk-way plantings.

This plant is Mr. A’s favorite and he asked if we could add it to the front yard when we were planning the new beds. This Red Hot Poker is a favorite of the hummingbirds. I actually thought it was dead this past winter because it didn’t look at all like it had any life left in it but here it is….glorious. You can see my English Lavender in the background as it is bursting with blossoms and bees.

Our grapes coming along strong. In fact, we had to cut them back already because they were overwhelming the corner of the garden where we sit in their shade. We have a couple varieties planted but I am pretty sure these are the Thompson seedless…good eating grapes.

Sunflowers by the dozens are all starting to form in our bee garden. Wake up sunflowers!

Tomatoes are green but hold the promise of being sweet juicy morsels soon.

Pumpkins in the Three Sisters Garden are growing by the minute. We had a few days of hot hot weather and they loved it. I am thrilled they are looking so great!

We have coneflowers that are almost taller than I am this year.I think the buds are almost as pretty as the flowers but the bees are waiting on the real thing.

Our pole beans are holding on tight and climbing towards the summer sky. I swear I put the poles in and the next day they were already half way up….I need to do a time lapse. My morning glories are doing the same thing out in the other garden.

The Butterfly bush is going to be in full bloom soon. We planted three new bushes this year and I love the graceful way they grow. I am not a tidy gardener so it is fine with me that they sort of grow as they wish. My garden this year is by far the most free-flowing of all gardens. I decided it is more fun not to try to control everything.

One last hydrangea image….especially for my hydrangea loving friend Tricia.

Hope you enjoyed your stroll through our gardens this week. We had two inches of rain last night so I am glad that I got out and took the photos a few days ago. We never get that much rain in June so it continues to be an unusual year here in Northern California.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Barb — 6 Comments

Our June Bird Study: Lesser Goldfinches Eat My Sunflowers

6 27 11 Sunflower Leaves - Eaten by Finches

Sunflowers in our garden (self-seeded). Tasty snack for the goldfinches.

Bird Study for the June Newsletter Challenge

We have a beautiful songbird in our backyard that sings to us as we garden. He often is seen in our finch feeder but he also has another part of his diet that is interesting. The Lesser goldfinch eats our sunflower’s leaves! They must be so very light because they can land on the leaves and they hardly dip under the weight. They nibble the green parts of the leaves and leave holes and skeleton leaves on the plants.

I found this video on YouTube.com that shows what we observed in our garden.

Lesser goldfinch eating sunflower leaves

5 11 11 Garden birds Goldfinch in the Birdbath

I caught this Lesser goldfinch in our birdbath….bathing and singing.

There is a lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 10) and a previous Outdoor Hour Challenge (Yellow Birds) for the goldfinch which includes this link: Get Gorgeous Goldfinches! The article gives you tips for attracting and then feeding your own goldfinches. If you would like to hear the goldfinches song, you can listen at AllAboutBirds.com.

We used a photo and the notebook page from the June Newsletter.

We read on AllAboutBirds.com that the Lesser goldfinch sometimes makes its nest in among grapevines to shade the nest from the sun. We think our finches are nesting in our grapevines that are near our back birdfeeder. I never thought to look there.

We love these little birds and even though they cause a little mischief in the sunflower patch, we hope they stick around for awhile.

This is the last of our June Newsletter Challenges. We were able to complete all four this time.
Here are links to the other three:
Garden Critter: Honeybee
Tree: Sitka Spruce
Crop Plant: Corn

Now for our Tweet and See list for June 2011
Backyard and Neighborhood:

Turkey vultures
Steller’s jay
Oak titmouse
Lesser goldfinch
Anna’s hummingbirds
California quail
Western scrub jays
Mourning doves
Acorn woodpecker
Common raven
Wild turkeys
Cooper’s hawk
White-breasted nuthatch
California towhee
Spotted towhee
House finches
American crows

Trip to Oregon-There were more birds that I didn’t know so I can’t list:

Osprey
Brown pelican
Song sparrow
American crows
Turkey vultures
American robins
White-crowned sparrows
Western gull
California quail
Black oysercatcher
Winter wren

Happy Birding!

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Barb — 8 Comments

Making a Garden a Place of Joy – Give Yourself Permission

Sunny hot weather this week in Northern California has given our garden just the breath of life that it needed after our cool rainy weather in May and the beginning of June.

The sunflowers actually look like sunflowers all neatly growing in rows, just waiting for each day’s sunshine. If you remember I planted three varieties in this section of the garden…my artist garden. I am envisioning a lawn chair in the shade of the maple tree, paints and colored pencils sitting at my side and a sketch book in my hand just across the yard from these beauties.

My three sisters garden is all planted and growing! We added the beans and pumpkins and most of the seeds have spouted and are growing right as they should. This has been a fun project….one that has captured my interest, renewing my gardening zeal.

We have had several quarts of strawberries already…big and juicy red ones!

Now this is another of my “mystery” plants. I was waiting to see what was going to bloom and this week it has come alive with color! Here they are…Cantebury Bells. I vaguely remember planting them last year and since they are a biennial, they are blooming this year. Amazing color….which you know will make its way into my nature journal.

We had two birdbaths in the backyard so I decided to move one to the front yard…perfect fit. The empty spot in the garden is really needing some attention and I don’t know what to put here. In the spring there are tulips and allium that bloom but in the summer there isn’t much to fill in the spot. I think those are old gladiola bulbs that didn’t bloom last year coming up. I am not a big fan of gladiolas. This spot gets sun most of the day so the roses love it and I let the allysum grow where it wants. Any suggestions for plants for this middle spot would be appreciated…I’m thinking something taller than the roses.

The tickseed is in full bloom and it makes such a great little bouquet for the table….nothing makes you smile more than having breakfast with a vase of sunshiney tickseed in front of you.

The chore list for the garden this week includes quite a bit of weeding, including the hedge bindweed that I wrote about recently. I try to spend 15-20 minutes in the morning each day just pulling weeds. The whole garden never is weeded at one time but it doesn’t get too crazy with daily attention. I have one tomato that doesn’t look so great so I will try to figure out how to perk it up. I also have one garden box that looks like it has some insect eating the leaves on the plants…..time for some private eye time to see if I can figure out who is the culprit.

In the past, I worried about having the garden “just right”. I spent way too much time worrying about the weeds and the organization and the practicality of it all. I realized this week that I have come to a new understanding about my garden. The garden is what I make of it and if I want to grow pumpkins in the middle of my grass…I can give myself permission to do so. If I want to try something new, I can because it is MY garden.

This year I am just going to enjoy the gardening experience…take the ups and downs as they come. I will put in the effort that I can and see what happens.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Still Planting Seeds and Making Discoveries: Sunflowers, Foxglove, and Three Sisters

Three kinds of sunflowers – mixed the seeds and planted in our garden.

Seed planting continues in our garden as the weather has allowed us to be outdoors. We have had rain, wind, and one morning we had about half inch of snow! It has been the craziest weather year ever. The snow managed to come *after* I planted my tomato seedlings. They look like they are going to be just fine but I hope the weather warms up again soon.

I decided to plant a patch of sunflowers, mixing three different kinds of seed in a pile and then randomly putting them into the garden (see the photo above for the varieties we picked). We shall see how it turns out. The Lemon Queen sunflowers that I planted a few weeks ago are now sprouted and about 2 inches high. I ended up planting some Four O’Clocks in the same bed which will be interesting to see how they grow in the same space.

Our volunteer sunflowers sprouting up under the birdfeeder are really getting tall already. I love having sunflowers plant themselves and the birds enjoy the seeds in the autumn.

The Three Sisters garden did not get planted again this week. We have composted the row again and added a little mulch as well. It is really looking great after Mr. B dug out all the turf and roots left over from the last composting. The corn will be planted first in mounds and then when the corn is 6 inches tall we will plant the beans and pumpkins.

I did get one more tomato seedling in the ground and some lemon thyme to replace the one that disappeared from last year’s garden.

In other areas, amazing discoveries were made over in the butterfly garden. I noticed a rather large plant growing over the last few weeks. I couldn’t remember what I had planted in that particular spot….I’ve tried a few things there and nothing seems to like it very well. I left the plant alone when I was weeding, figuring I could wait a bit to see just what it was when it grew larger.

Sure enough, it is a foxglove!

This was quite a surprise since I don’t even remember EVER planting a foxglove in this spot. I will enjoy it no matter how it ended up in my garden. It looks pretty happy growing up among the daylilies and the lavender.

I can hardly wait for it to bloom!

This week we are hoping to get out and plant the remaining seeds – more basil, more zinnias, a few more rows of Kentucky Wonders, and a new dahlia that says it grows in containers (I put a link at the bottom of this post for the seeds we are planting). We are really keeping our garden a manageable size this year and I am anticipating a lot of time just sitting and enjoying the garden rather than working in it all the time.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Barb — 3 Comments

Garden Update: Just Not a Great Year So Far

I wouldn’t quite say the garden is disappointing but it is far less productive than in recent years. Could it be the weather? Too cold and wet early on? Too hot now? I know I was committed to having a smaller garden this year so it may just be that I have become accustomed to having more of everything and this scaled back garden is what it is.

The zucchini is blossoming but nothing to eat so far. This bee was so heavy with pollen he could hardly move. I have never seen so much pollen.

Our sunflowers for the Great Sunflower Project are just now blooming so we will have the opportunity to count bees and participate in that activity this week. The bees are far more busy in other parts of the garden.

Our butterfly and hummingbird garden is a hub of activity. Swooping hummingbirds, buzzing bees, and perching finches grab your attention whenever you are outside in the backyard.

Rainbows of colors fill the flower beds now that the day lilies, coneflowers, bee balm, and roses are blooming all at the same time.

Some crazy pretty day lilies in the butterfly garden.

Most likely my new favorite flower in the garden this year is this bee balm.

Sometimes you just capture the best moments purely by chance. I was taking a photo of this butterfly bush and the bee came along and entered the shot. Pretty cool huh?

The crepe myrtles are starting to burst out in color this week. We love this bush so much that we planted three more in our front yard last fall…so easy to grow, brilliantly colored when they bloom.

Another new to us plant in our garden is this Dusty Miller. Here are the colorful buds.

This is the shape of the leaf…amazing and beautiful.

So as you can see, the veggie garden is not all that exciting but the flowers are making up for it. Hopefully my next update will be filled with yummy delicious things to eat.

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Garden Update: Growing By the Minute

Our crop of blackberries growing near our “wildside” is amazing this year. The abundance of blossoms and new little berries makes my mouth water just thinking of the summer eating we will enjoy.

The coreopsis is bursting with color and I have vases and vases filled with these cheerful blooms.

You will need to click over to Flickr to read the notes for this photo. This is my fence-line garden and it happens to have my tallest sunflower so far this season. This is a volunteer flower and the birds must have planted the seed sometime for us all to enjoy.

Just a little snapshot from the garden this week. From now on, the garden’s look will change almost daily.

It’s not too late! You can still plant some things in your garden to enjoy this summer even if you plant something in a pot on your porch.

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Barb — 12 Comments

Great Sunflower Project 2010

Guess what I got in the mail???

We participated in the Great Sunflower Project last year and it was a wonderful experience. I encourage all who can grow and observe sunflowers to participate. I know it seems early to start thinking about growing sunflowers, but this is really the time of year to start the planning aspect of the garden.

Get more information about this fun summer activity here: Great Sunflower Project.

Tag: Sunflowers

Sunflower Summer: Squeezing Out the Goodness

Sunflower Garden – July Newsletter Grid Study

Growing An Artist Garden Takes Patience – Weekly Update

Planning a Garden and Watching it Grow

Our June Bird Study: Lesser Goldfinches Eat My Sunflowers

Making a Garden a Place of Joy – Give Yourself Permission

Still Planting Seeds and Making Discoveries: Sunflowers, Foxglove, and Three Sisters

Garden Update: Just Not a Great Year So Far

Garden Update: Growing By the Minute

Great Sunflower Project 2010

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