As was the case with the Faust Park photos, I have quite a few photos taken in my garden.
I’m not sure what is going on here with this flower but I had a lot of it happening last year with my rudbeckias and even a cone flower. Below is a rudbeckia with what appears to be new plants growing out of the seed head. We had an unusually large amount of rain the past two summers and I’m wondering if that is causing the seeds to sprout or is something else going on? If anyone know what this is I’d apricate hearing from you.
A cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis) which does a pretty good of attracting hummingbirds.
I think this is a yellow-striped army worm. I know it’s on a rudbeckia. Not sure if it’s just debris or another tiny critter at the six o’clock position.
Blue cardinal flower (lobelia siphilitica).
Weird petal development on a rudbeckia.
I have quite a few purple coneflower plants but most are soggy, dark stems topped with equally soggy, dark seed heads, and dark remnants of flower heads in various stages of decomposition. I think the rains have gotten to them because of the poorly draining, clay soil that makes up my garden. On the brighter side my moss crops are doing especially well this year. If they were a cash crop I could have a nice bit of extra income during the summer.
As I mentioned above my garden is plagued with poorly draining clay soil. I’ve read how to determine if the soil is poorly draining or not. One source says to dig a 12 inched deep hole that is 12 inches by 12 inches. Fill it with water and if takes more than X minutes for the water to drain out it has poor drainage. Another site had the same advice but the dimensions were 18″x18″x18″. Both said if the soil doesn’t meet the time requirement then you should amend the soil.
I’m going to do this test after my annuals die out so I have room to dig. I know my soil won’t past the test so I anticipate working in the garden into late fall and some “good” days this winter.
Thank you for stopping by.
David
It's Complicated 
Kodak Brownie, that was fun, I actually got one in my collection of oldies.
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Thanks for paying attention. 🙂
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I’m loving these bright garden colors here
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Thank you very much.
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Nice garden.
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Thanks Tom.
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Nothing wrong with a kodak brownie that was my first camera!
Good luck with improving your clay soil. Our old place was the same, over the years we dug in loads of compost yet still bulbs like daffs and tulips rotted after a few years. In the end what grew we encouraged what died we never planted that type again.
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If I don’t do something, especially if we have another year of rain like the past two, I’m going to have to settle for a rock and moss garden. 🙂
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When I was a kid, our camera was a brownie – how simple it was! Wish I had it now.
Your weird flowers are probably insect damage related. There are moth larva, leafhoppers and a tiny mite that can all cause disfiguration of flowers. Clean all the leaf and stem litter around your plants this fall and dispose of them in the trash to avoid reinfection next year.
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We had a couple of Brownies when I was a kid but my favorite of that type was the Kodak Instamatic (with flash cubes) in the 60s and 70s. In terms of ubiquitousness they were the smartphone camera of that era. Thank you for the cleaning tip, I’ll do that in advance of my soil amending project.
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