Ranunculus Flowers

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Ranunculus

Ranunculus is the umbrella name of a lot of types of this flower. Some are Buttercups and some have a lot of petals. THe ones with a lot of petals are called asiaticus and you see them at garden centers to plant in pots or the ground.
Rancunulus are spring flowers. I have seen them planted in sun and part shade. They don’t live into the hot summer.

The first two pictures are of the Buttercup type.

By, sannse, Wikipedia Commons

By, User: Tigernte Wikipedia Commons

The garden center type  by, Joydeep Sen Sarma, Wikipedia

The last three pictures are by 4028md09, Wikipedia Commons

Portulaca

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Portulaca

Portulaca are lovely little flowers on a background of green leaves. They grow more spreading out than up. You can plant them in pots, hanging baskets and right in the ground. 
I’ll be saying this a lot, if you have plants in pots or hanging baskets, water them well and make sure the water pours out of the holes in the bottom of the pot. If you don’t do this, the plant may end up only partially watered. It won’t like you at all if you do that.
Portulaca are annuals which means that they don’t live when it gets too cold. They can take full sun.
I saw Portulaca late in the fall and into the winter last year because t was such a warm time. They were still bloooming.

By, Gothika, Wikipedia Commons

By, Laogooli, Wikipedia Commons

By, Meneerke bloem, Wikipedia Commons

By, MGTom, Wikipedea

By, Forest & Kim Starr, Wikipedia Commons

Gaillardia Flowers

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Gaillardia

Gaillardia are often called Blanket flowers. If a lot are planted together, they look like a blanket of color. They are perennial, which means they usually survive winters and grow to almost twice the size of when they are first planted.
Here are pictures of some types of Gaillardia.

By, JLPC, Wikipedia Commons

By, J.M. Garg, Wikipedia Commons

The next two pictures are by the US Department of Agriculture.

By, User: Quertzy2, Wikipedia

The last picture is by, Albertomoricon, Wikipedia.

 

 

Coleus Plants

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Coleus plants

It is a hot one with high humidity today. THis made me think of shade and shade plants.
Coleus are tropical plants which means they can’t take the cold. They do like heat, but not bright sun. You can plant them in the shade and have color for the summer.
Coleus leaves can get big and so when you plant them, give a smidgen of space between them.

de. Wikipedia

This last picture is by Pharoh Hound, Wikipedia Commons

Memorial Day 2012

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post war nature

I hesitated to do this post because I am ignorant about World War One. I have read a lot and thought about it, but that means nothing when I think of those who were in the battles.
One thing I have taken not of is how nature covers up what people have done. If you didn’t know that there had been fierce battles on large areas of ground, you would see that ground today as normal.
I found four pictures of places in France where World War One will not be forgotten. This is only a small example. These pictures were taken in the recent past.

The first picture is of the bell tower at Arras  by, troye owens, Wikipedia Commons.
I have included this picture because of what Antoine De Saint Exupery wrote about Arras in his book Flight From Arras.

Verdun, a small patch of battlefield ground, Wikipedia

This is a picture of The Somme  by, en. User:Donarreiskoffer, Wikipedia

This last picture is of The Marne and it is from Wikipedia.

Peace Plants

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peace plants

Peace plants are in the Lily family. but don’t look much like Lilies.
They like shady areas and are quite happy to live as indoor plants. Peace plants can get large. If you buy a small one and it lives a long time, you will have to transplant it into bigger pots.

By, Denes Emoke, Wikipedia Commons

By, Fastily, Wikipedia Commons

By, de.Benutzer Smaragdenstadt-Fanpage, Wikipedia Commons

The last three pictures are by, Forest & Kim Starr, Wikipedia Commons

 

Red, White and Blue Flowers

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Bluebonnets, Poppies, Trillium

I was curious about the Texas State Flower and so I looked it up. It is the Bluebonnet. From there, I looked at Trillium, I forget why and then on to Poppies. I ended up with red, white and blue flower pictures.
It is Memorial Day weekend, the day being observed on Monday.
Flower pictures, the same colors as the US flag.

Update, Twice, the pictures vanished from the post. THis is the third try.

Poppies  by, John Beniston, Wikipedia

Trillium  by pfly, Wikipedia Commons

Bluebonnet  by, David R. Tribble Wikipedia Commons

 

Vegetable Flowers

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vegetable flowers

I’ve seen tomato plants with flowers tons of times. I wondered about other vegetables that flower. I know that if it has seeds it’s a fruit, but I still call them vegetables.

Artichoke flower  by, Alvesgaspar, Wikipedia Commons

Snow Pea flowers  by, Brmvll, en.Wikipedia

Sweet potato flower  by, en.User:Pollinator, Wikipedia

Potato plant flowers  by, Pauline Eccles, geographic.org.uk

Eggplant flowers  by, en.User:Andrew c, Wikipedia Commons

Onion Plant Flower  by, Mike Coates, publicdomainpictures.net

This last picture is of Tomato plant flowers  by, Sanjay Archarya, Wikipedia Commons.

 

Bird of Paradise and Birds of Paradise

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bird of paradise, macaws

Bird of Paradise is an outstanding, colorful flower. One part of the flower does indeed look like a bird.
Macaws are also beautiful and colorful.

Having said that. I’ll start with two pictures that have white as the main color. The first is a Bird of Paradise and the second is of white Cockatoos.

By, Hardyplants, Wikipedia Commons

By, Seweryn Olkowicz, Wikipedia Commons

By, Viatour, Wikipedia Commons

By, Tony Wantanebe

By, Photonart, Wikipedia Commons

 

By, Nataraja, Wikipedia

By, Cburnett, Wikipedia

By, Wikiusername7795, Wikipedia Commons

BY, Morios, Wikipedia

 

The last two pictures have red as the main color.

By, Mathknight, Wikipedia Commons

By, Jar0d, Wikipedia

 

 

Three Kinds of Corn

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corn

When you see a corn field, it is hard to tell what kind of corn is growing there.
Local farmers used to plant rows of feed corn around the borders of their sweet corn fields. When people from out of the area used to help themselves to some corn, they got home and found out that they had feed corn.

I’ll start with sweet corn plants. Sweet corn is for eating. 

Corn seeds

Very young corn plant

Young sweet corn  by, Royalboil, Wikipedia

Mature sweet corn, 41 days later  by, Royalboil, Wikipedia

Cornfields  by, Billy Hathorn, Wikipedia Commons

Popcorn cobs,  by, Royalboil, Wikipedia

Popcorn ear, partially shelled  by, Royalboil, Wikipedia

Popcorn popping  by, At09kg, Wikpedia Commons

Popcorn that has been popped is called flakes. There are two types of flakes. One is mushroom, on the left and butterfly, on the right.

By, Bunchofgrapes, Wikipedia

Field corn in husks  by, Mobius, Wikipedia

Feed Corn

This last picture is of where a lot of feed corn goes.