Friday Fabulous Flower - Prairie royalty

 

TPP thinks he owes everyone a FFF post, so this one is a day early because according to both Ms. Phactor and the F1 there will be no time to post a blog in the next 2-3 days.  Gad, but it's  a long list.  This is an outstanding plant.  Spotted it in bloom rising above the rest of the perennial bed from the table in our kitchen probably about 50 yds away.  And no question this plant liked the monsoonal rain even of 2 weeks ago (10.5").  This is Filipendula rubra, Queen of the prairie, or meadow sweet.  At this time of year it stands about a stately 6' tall and likes some what wetter soil (and it's present location can be a bit dry this time of year).  This is a member of the Rose family, which should be fairly obvious.  The flowers are pretty small, but form a large visible cluster.  The color can vary from this pink to a darker rose especially in cultivars (this is pretty much wild type).  And it contrasts nicely with the taller gray coneflower's yellow.  The leaves are palmately lobed leaves.

Friday Fabulous Flower - Still in flower

 TPP went out to a nursery area to collect some seeds, and this rare species, Sanguisorba canadensis, was still in flower. The common name is burnett, but since it only occurs in 3 counties in Lincolnland, it is anything but common.  Although the flowers don't look it, this is a member of the Rose Family.  The display is basically all stamens and as they are rather lax they blow prettily in a breeze.  October 8 is a bit late for flowering but not for this plant.  Seed collected last year germinated well and come next spring we'll have a lot of seedlings to  add to the prairie plot.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - made in the shade, Neillia

The Phactors' gardens are sun challenged because of all the big trees, so shade gardens it is.  Shade loving ephemerals, don't actually love shade, they deal with it by growing in the brief window of spring sun time before the leafy canopy above closes. Then most of them die down, their season being over.  So then what?  In the search for shade-loving and shade-tolerating shrubs, TPP discovered Neillia sinensis, Chinese neillia, (KNEEL-lee-ah cy-NEN-sis) at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was growing at the back of a garden and no one could find the label. However, the flowers had a large tubular hypanthium, and with the double saw-toothed leaves, it was clearly a member of the Rose family. Then it was a not too difficult task to figure out what it was.  Ours loves its shady post, although it takes some space; the shrub is just over 6 feet tall with elegantly arching stems, and it does tend to spread so you either give it a lot of space or continue to spade out the new shoots.  However at the beginning of May these lovely drooping racemes of pink flowers appear that really make this shrub worth having.

Fungal fruit mummies

While having dinner and drinks with friends, TPP was shown this image, on a little cell phone screen, and asked, "What is this?"  This question has been asked, and answered, before, but at the time the name of the fungus would not pop out of the memory banks.  These are fungal fruit mummies, and when first you see such "fruit" they do look quite strange.  They have been totally parasitized.  The organism that does this is Taphrina pruni.  The problem here is that it is uncertain what the fruit is supposed to be, and the picture was taken in San Diego, so that doesn't limit things very much what with all the exotics that grow there.  The tree certainly looks like a Prunus, a plum perphaps, but those ain't plums no more. No, it can't be a plum with the floral remnants at the end characteristic of Maloideae.  Hmm.  Second guess, a quince, Cydonia, or some sort of Asian member of the Rose family?  Anyone got a better suggestion?  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Goat's beard

Some plants struggle along, and then for one of a variety of reasons you move them, and voila, they prosper.  And so it was with this species of goat's beard (Aruncus dioicus).  After struggling along in obscurity for several years, it survived a near miss when rather than discarding it, we transplanted this goat's beard just to fill in some space vacated by removal of a gigantic old honeysuckle.  And what a transformation!  For the first time in our garden, it looks quite handsome topped with its lacy white inflorescences.  Apparently the combination of a heavier soil and heavier shade was not to its liking, and a silver bell shrub has also prospered by a move to a nearby site.  For many people the other surprising thing about this genus is that it belongs to the rose family.  It just doesn't look rosy to most people, but the foliage is purely rose family.  If you compare it to something like Sorbaria, you begin to see the connection to spireas and other small flowered roses.  

What about Photinia x fraseri?

Anonymous (he asks lots of questions) asks: I have a plant called a Photinia fraseri and I was wondering if i could get infromation on it. Such as how big do they get, what facts are unusual about the Photinia fraseri, whats the best way to take care of it,etc.
Photinia x fraseri is a dirt common shrub in zones 7-9. Although often listed as a species, this is of hybrid origin and named, like many other introduced Asian species, after the great British plant collector John Fraser (Maybe you've heard of Fraser fir?). While not liking cold weather at all, it will require regular watering in hot weather. It's mostly evergreen and its most striking feature is that the new foliage flushes bright red, a feature common to many tropical plants. This Photinia is mostly used as a large foundation shrub or for hedges. If not poodle pruned it should reach 8-10 feet tall and 8-10 feet wide. The genus is part of the rose family, but the flowers are rather small reminding me of Spirea, but not producing much of a floral display.