more blooms today...

Cleome, or spider lily, or sparkler plant. This came home with me when I saw it at the nursery... we were talking about it on Julies blog, A Succulent Life... (see link to right) I normally wouldn't buy a plant this size. Half the fun of a plant is watching it grow up, and go through it's changes. But, it was only 3 bucks, so what the heck...

This is a Pavonia hastata... aka rock rose or swamp rose... Now I don't know the why of the swamp rose name, since it survives here with absolutely no extra water in very un-swamp conditions. That's actually why I grow it... the blooms are pretty, but not overly impressive, being less than 2 inches across... but these mini hibiscus flowers are produced by the hundreds, and all summer when the heat has pretty much brought everything else to its knees... each bloom produces 5 seeds. Which spread and sprout... a good amount of time every spring is spent pulling up extra seedlings... but before the heat hits, it produces buds that never open, but self fertilize and still produce seeds... hence it's a little invasive. (by the way, violets produce those self-fertilizing flowers too.)


And of course, a purple coneflower... I started with 2 plants, and they've seeded over the years... there are now 20 or 30 scattered around the yard. Very reliable in the heat, these are the ones used to produce echinacea, which people use to treat colds.