So, with a nod to Carol and GBBD, I humbly submit GBFD or Garden Bloggers Food Day. Because it so seldom  happens, that I have an abundance of both blooms and produce.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly on pink zinnia

Pollinators, like bees and butterflies are key to producing seed.

Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes)  It is the state butterfly of Oklahoma.

After mating, small, yellow eggs are laid on garden plants from the carrot family, Apiaceae, including dill, fennel, Queen Anne’s lace, and parsley. I always grow extra parsley happing to create an attractive area for Black Swallowtails. This year the worms helped themselves to the carrots growing near the zinnias.

The most noticable blooms in my garden are the sunflowers.

"Musicbox" but I call these my mailbox sunflowers.

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are blooming their big heads off and making sunflower seeds. Nothing can make a gold finch happier.

"Chocolate Cherry"

"Van Gogh" with half runner bean vines.

"Valentine" pale lemon flowers about 5" across.

Giant Heirloom, "Titan" Sunflower

These native sun-worshipping North American native flowers turn on their stalks to follow the sun. The name Helianthus is from the Greek words for sun and flower.

Direct sow seed into the garden. Sunflowers have long taproots that are easily stunted, so wait until the ground is warmed and plant seeds into the garden soil.

Several of these sunflowers are pollen free, making them ideal for bouquets. They don’t drop messy pollen on the table.

"Musicbox" Sunflower

I have a couple more sunflowers this year.One has already bloomed and is gone. Another is a perennial sunflower that is a late blooming variety not yet blooming.

I got all these sunflower seed from Renee’s Garden seed.

Thanks for stopping by.

GBFD is my way of sharing my garden this month, August 2011.

GBBD is a way to share what is blooming in my garden on the 15th of the month.

Carol from May Dreams Gardens sponsors Bloom Day each month. Thank you, Carol.

Reluctant bloomers

It’s “slim pickins” in the garden as my grandmother used to say. But I have the random daffodil returning for a repeat performance this year. Most of the little sunny dafs are holding out for blue skies and warmer weather. Some grape hyacinth and crocus are waiting in the wings for spring days filled with sunshine and birdsong.

This single plant has more than a dozen buds waiting to bloom.

I’m taking these photos for Bloom Day but most of these bulbs will have come and gone between Bloom Days.

There are early bloomers protected by the old trees, but the ones out in the yard are waiting, waiting, like me.

The earliest daffodils are leading the bulb bloom.

I’m sort of a homeless blogger this week as I get a new site up and running. These things always take more time than you think (like weeding and watering.)

Most of all I wanted to share this volunteer parsley. I’ve never had parsley that is indeed it’s true self; a biennial. I let last years second year parsley reseed. The plant was enormous, growing three or four times larger than my little “annual parsley.” The reseeded parsley is weeks ahead of the plants I am patiently waiting to sprout from seed. This year, I soaked the seed for 24 hours be for planting in the seed tray.

This is my herb growing tip of the month: Drain the soaked seed on a coffee filter. Seeds won’t stick to the filter like they do to paper towels.

Parsley and chives are up and growing before other herbs.

Seeds drained on coffee filters do not stick to the filter.

This is a gifted rose from the storybook series. It’s a prolific bloomer, no fragrance, but the color stands out from a distance. I never saw these on the market, too bad because I would buy more. They are faithful bloomers, even gracing the Thanksgiving table last year.

I still have a lot of food crops blooming. “They won’t have time to make”, as grandma used to say.

This tasty English cucumber is still producing long skinny, thin skinned. cucumbers.
Pinky Winky Hardy Hydrangea or Hydrangea paniculata is growing in a couple of places in my yard, The one that gets more sun does the best. Hiding behind thee hardy hydrangea, is Buttered Popcorn day lily, Hemerocallis Buttered Popcorn. It’s a repeat bloomer and the brilliant yellow blooms always get noticed.

About now, I should tell you that I’m using the camera/phone, and I have no excuse for the photo quality, except I can’t keep it steady enough for good photos.
Crown Princess Margareta, a David Austin Rose. Once it is cut, the heavy blooms tend to droop, so it not a good choice for bouquets. Still it is so fragrant and lovely, it’s hard not to bring a few cut flowers indoors.

These creamy poppies were a garden surprise, I forgot that I had planted the seed. California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is native to grassy areas, in CA. Here in MO. it must be treated as an annual. But it is beautiful and easy to grow. It is California’s official flower and has it’s own day. April 6 is California Poppy Day.

Gaillardia Amber Wheels is hardy and some times self sows on my patio. I saved seed last year and planted the seed again this year. It’s a hardy flower, still blooming it’s little head off. Next year I will grow more of these because the color is brilliant and they have a very long blooming period.

Petunia, Old Fashioned vining, (Petunia multiflora) a fragrant single petunia. Fragrant blossoms from June until after frost. This soft color would go with anything. I hope to collect seed and grow several of these next year. A hundred years ago, it was common in gardens, this is now considered a rare heirloom.

Bloom Day
Bloom Day
Bloom Day
The biggest and most successful of Bloom Days is well past. Our Gardens are in the various stages of fruiting and reproduction. We bring fat, full baskets of beans, squashes and cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and herbs in every day. There are even more loads of corn and peaches from the farmers markets.

So the success of our gardens is more this month than blooms – it’s the fruit. Next month it will be the groaning pantry shelves filled with these fruits of our labor and the drying seeds.

These floppy hydrangeas are beautiful and long blooming I suspect if it were moved to a sunnier area they would not be so droopy. Because they are so big, they can fill a large vase, making for a very dramatic table centerpiece.

Buttered Popcornn, one of the earliest bloomers this year, is still producing these big brilliant blooms.

Old faithfuls, these marigolds were off to a slow start but are thriving now in the hot August sun.Marigolds are planted along the flower border and in the vegetable gardens.

These rare heirloom vining petunias are doing well in the shade of the cucumbers and squash. They have added a delicate blooms to the trellis all summer.

Tomato production has been limited by the early blight. This is the second summer with limited tomato harvest. Though there are still blooms making more tomatoes, so we will see whether they have time to make before the first frost.

Left to do:
Plant another crop of green beans, some turnips, dig the potatoes.

I am going to break up the bales that I used in my garden experiment. growing on bales is a good sound idea and I will try again next spring. A number of unfortunate circumstances have limited the bale garden success this year. More on that later. (the tomato above is growing in a bale.)

About 5 hours away from my garden, I decided to share Dolly’s Garden with you. I’m in Branson and I drive past Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede most every day. There is a giant butterfly made of flowers in the lawn.

Long story short. So, I drive up to the Dixie Stampede, loaded with two cameras. I can not wait to see what flowers they have used in this gorgeous floral landscape.

Maybe some dwarf gerbera daisies, little golden sunflowers, red cocks comb?

I had to laugh. The flowers are not real. And it makes sense to me. I think when you are driving by on highway 76, the important thing is big bold color and simple clear design. From the highway, the butterfly is gorgeous.

Up close, as you walk up to the box office, the flowers are real.Stella De Oro are hardy, permanent and easy to grow in most any soil, and they do standout like little golden trumpets. The green mound shaped plant is about 24 inches tall and wide, making it a compact landscaping plant that will look good all summer.

There are a lot of these sunny plants used in the landscapes throughout Branson. Stella De Oro offers a profusion of bright yellow blooms in early summer, then flowers repeatedly throughout the season. The golden blooms are are trumpet shaped and flowers reach about 2½ inches across.

All the window boxes are filled with beautiful artificial flowers. As I was snapping photos of the these fake flowers near the horse stalls, there was a grey horse that looked bored and sleepy, but the minute I started taking pictures, that grey mare perked right up. A show horse to be sure.

The grey mare became lively and alert when the cameras started clicking. She did not know I was only taking photos of the colorful but fake flowers.

Genista lydia Bangle is a nearly leafless plant with bright green stems when it is not blooming tiny snapdragon-like bright yellow flowers.

Rosa Crown Princess Margareta
I love these little wild looking roses. They put on a big bloom of enthusiasm, then continue occasionally to bloom all summer. When it gets cool in the fall, they start to get excited and bloom heavily again. Even a light frost will not deter them. I’ve had blooms on the Thanksgiving table from these little roses.

The chive flowers are still hanging on. That short-lived cilantro that reseeded itself, is about to bolt. I’ll plant some more so I will always have it for Mexican dishes. (Ha! As if I had a kitchen to cook in.) The chives are supervising those insecure and clingy spring peas that may or may not reach maturity. A mild spring can turn into a ferocious summer in a day here in Missouri. I love the sage flowers, the bees love it too.

Sage, cilantro, geraniums replacing the lavender chives near the spring peas.

In my garden, sage is grown both a culinary herb and a perennial flower. Sage blooms in the most delicate lavender shade. It’s a must-have herb in the garden with long lasting spiky blooms and an essential ingredient in corn bread dressing or grilled pork chops.

Peonies are blooming. They always remind me of my grandmother and Decoration Day, as she called Memorial day. I would cut a trunk full of peonies, and bring them down to her house Memorial Day weekend. We put the flowers if fruit jars and decorated of family grave sites with the peonies. Some were here when I moved in. Badly overgrown and neglected. Little by little they are looking better. A hardy serving of compost, some bone meal and plenty of mulch has improved their bloom number only slightly. “But they just LOOK better, I keep telling myself.” The bright pink color is an older variety – who knows the variety? The only acceptable solution is to love ‘em and leave ‘em where they are, or replace them with larger and newer varieties, which will take a couple of years to get healthy, well rooted plants to make them selves at home. Peonies always look better when they are weeded and cared for. I imagine, if they are left to grow, they may outlive me.

This tiny yellow flower is arugula that has gone to seed.

Weigela – VariegatedWeigela florida ‘Variegata’ I grow it for the foliage, the flowers are a bonus.

The last of the iris are still beautiful.

An old fashioned Aquilegia (Columbine).

Marigolds

Three things:

1. Buy a Gardener’s Journal – A Ten Year Chronicle of Your Garden, like Lee Valley Tools http://ow.ly/71Bh It’s so big and heavy, I can’t loose it. Now, when I buy a plant, I write down the name, in this book. NOW PLEASE!

2. If anyone at the nursery ever hands you a cute little green plant in a 2 ½ in pot and the label reads “may be invasive.” Smile. Return the plant. Take a step back, turn, and run for your life. Lock your car doors, and check to make sure no one has ‘gifted’ you that cute green plant in a 2 ½ in pot.

3. When you are leaving comments on other garden bloggers bloom day blogs, NEVER, NEVER mention their big bloomers.

And finally, something to share from a southern Missouri gardener:

The Daffodils
by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I found a group of garden enthusiasts who were kind enough to include in Bloom Day. As grandpa would say, “These are my kind of people.”

In the front yard this pink dogwood steals the show for weeks.
As it first begins to bloom, the flowers are almost red. When fully open. they will be a very bright pink.

Pink Dogwood Tree in my front yard was well established when I moved here two years ago.

Most of these tulip and daffodils, I think about 800 bulbs, were planted last fall and are from Colorblends. Mostly a blend of yellow, orange-apricot and red Darwin Hybrids. Like a sunset, the color aspect changes over time: from bright to pastel. The combination is called Celebration. The daffodils are mostly Daffodil Flight Time.

The dafs will be back next year and some of the tulips, provided the gluttonous grey squirrel does minimal munching.

Also, There are some heirloom bulbs. One of the prettiest and smallest is Tulip Bakeri Lilac

Wonder. Showy lilac-pink flowers with deep yellow centers bob in the slightest breeze. They came up later than the other tulips, which, I am sure, is an attention getting device for these little bloomers. I love this little flower that looks like a lavender tulip until you get up close enough to discover the brilliant yellow inside. About 8 inches tall and a native of Crete. Suitable for zones 3-7. (My garden is in zone 6.)

AND THIS, which I forgot it’s name and I hope you will help me remember.They are about 3 inches tall and planted in the bed where I planted litttle early bloomers, like snow drops, crocus, grape hyacinth. In their second year, they are beginning to naturalize.

What gardener would honestly say they did not have a few brilliant yellow dandelions. Here we are demonstrating Grandpas Weeder to extract a volunteer in the lawn. The link will get you to more info about this sturdy, useful tool.

A few azalea blooms survived two hard freezes. But mostly this is the second year in a row that these spring spectacles have been frozen out.

These Alpine strawberries that have been blooming since March. Cool weather doesn’t deter
them. If the blooms freeze, there will be plenty more to f0llow. I tell all about the itty bitty berries in an earlier blog post.

There are a few more, a lone purple iris, white dogwood, and the beautiful little purple globes of the chives. But I am not at home and can not run out a snap photos.

A few poetic last words:

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill”

So, let me say, thank you. It’s fun to be a part of this Bloom Day.

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. ~Chinese Proverb