Summertime flowers and herding rascal cats;)
Walking out the road most days it’s not just birds and bugs I look at! Ok, I do like photographing them a lot! Sigh…I could do with a nice landscape soon! Ha! But flowers, something new is always popping up this time of year, and the mushrooms are starting soon as well! With this heat and early morning Sundays 1″ plus of rain, things are going to start to sprout! and bugs…yes, there will be more “Bothersome Deer Flies” how perfectly named are they?!
When you start to read about some of the common wildflowers you realize how many are introduced from far away. The Deptford pink or grass pink is a species of Dianthus (“pink”) native to most of Europe, from Portugal north to southern Scotland and southern Finland, and east to Ukraine and the Caucasus. The oxeye daisy or marguerite (French: Marguerite commune, “common marguerite”) is a widespread flowering plant native to Europe and the temperate regions of Asia, and an introduced plant to North America, Australia and New Zealand. Tragopogon dubius, commonly known as yellow salsify, is a species of salsify with yellow flower heads. It is native to Eurasia and has been introduced to North America. But does it ever have cool seed heads! Add some rain and it’s pretty magical!
Pilosella aurantiaca-fox-and-cubs…or as I know it by: orange hawkweed, is a perennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae that is native to alpine regions of central and southern Europe, where it is protected in several regions. At least Philadelphia Fleabane Erigeron philadelphicus is native to North America as is Northern Blue Flag Iris versicolor, a species of Iris native to North America, in Eastern Canada and the Eastern United States as well as the Rubus odoratus, the purple-flowered raspberry. The Echium and Birds foot clover are introduced as well. So many natives, so many immigrants:)
On Thursday, it was cooler and drizzling slightly. Mike had seen some pictures from our friend Valerie that she took at Purdon Conservation Area not too far from here and said…”Let’s go! Now!” so we did, it about about 30 minutes North West of Perth. It was absolutely amazing! The day before they had said 95% of the orchids were blooming…yes orchids! The Purdon Conservation Area supports Canada’s largest native colony of showy lady slipper orchids, some 16,000 plants. In the 1930s, a man named Joe Pardon discovered a small group of native orchards in the region. He cultivated and cared for the colony for over 50 years, growing it to over 16,000 blooms. He recognized the unique nature of the wetland, which is a fen, and understood the specific needs of the Showy Lady’s Slipper orchids. He meticulously cared for the orchids, thinning brush, maintaining water levels, and hand-pollinating the flowers. How amazing is that!
This gorgeous orchid has vanished from much of its historical range due to threats such as habitat loss, wetland drainage, and over-zealous horticultural collectors. It grows in wetlands such as “fens” and also open wooded swamps. A fen is: “A peatland characterized by surface layers of poorly-to-moderately composted peat, with often well-decomposed peat near the base.”
The Showy Lady’s Slipper grows mainly in mossy hummocks within this fen.
Not just Orchids either! “Check out the Pitcher Plants!” a lady seated on one of the benches exclaimed, I come every year to see them-the red ones! Sarracenia purpurea, the purple pitcher plant, northern pitcher plant, turtle socks, or side-saddle flower, is a carnivorous plant in the family Sarraceniaceae. Watch out bugs! Like other species of Sarracenia, S. purpurea obtains most of its nutrients through prey capture.
There were Ferns and the beautiful Iris, and a new kind of loosestrife I have never seen as well.
One very green leaf looked like it had two jelly beans stuck on it, nope, berries! Lonicera canadensis (American fly honeysuckle or Canada fly honeysuckle) is a flowering deciduous, perennial, phanerophytic shrub which is monoclinous and grows 1–2 m (3 ft 3 in – 6 ft 7 in) tall. It typically flowers from the last week of April until the third or fourth week of May. Fruit appears approximately the first week of June until the first week of August. The fruit is fed upon by a variety of avian frugivores including the American robin and northern cardinal. There were also some Red-berried Elders with berries!
A magical spot. I heard few birds and saw few bugs, except the ever present mosquito, maybe because it was cool and drizzling. Not now. I don’t even want to look at the thermometer today…0_0! 36.5°…The cats came running in last night, our buddies the “Bothersome Deer Flies” were after them as well! Maybe only morning outings for awhile to torment the young chipmunks!
Gamora is very very sad…we took her Mewberry-Mobile into a shop to have the suspension checked over, see about the bushings, steering, before we go off into the wilds of Ontario! Ha! She walks out to the gravel pad sadly and looks around. I keep telling her it’s coming back!
There will be more adventures…for now the trick is simply to stay cool! Groot does say a bit of rolling around in the sun isn’t a bad thing! Ha! Saludos amigos. Stay tuned for Loons and Ospreys and Swans and Gray Rat Snake visitors and let’s hope our power stays on! 🙂
