Flies in (and out of) Drag

Because of the recent and ongoing ruckus about honeybees and colony collapse disorder, I've been watching carefully for honeybees on the various flowering plants we've got outside this year. So far, not a one, though that might just mean we're not growing anything they find appealing.

There are plenty of other insects to look at, though. A few are even bees. They're just not honeybees.

Is

Random plant event: Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee'

This is one of those things that I expect will be minor -- possibly even trivial -- to most of you, but it's new (more like "new") and exciting to me, so I'm blogging about it anyway.

When we first moved in here, I bought some 'Durango Bee' marigolds to plant, because . . . well, it's one of those cases where although I can see perfectly well why people might not like them, and sort of feel

The Strawberries Finally Pay Off

Those of you who have been reading PATSP for a while will be familiar with the story, but just to make sure everybody is crystal clear about what this means:

We moved to the current house in 2009. I had a lot of ideas in the gardening department, and more enthusiasm than sense, so I'd bought all kinds of plants (where "all kinds" means "mostly annuals") in preparation for the move. One of the

Random plant event: Canna NOID

Last year, I saved as many seeds from the Cannas as I could collect, with the intention of starting all of them as new plants. Because everybody -- I in particular -- always needs more Cannas. It wound up being about 150 seeds, which I sanded down and soaked in water for a couple days, as you do, and then I made a bunch of little holes in a bed in the yard and dropped a seed in each hole. Flooded

Question for the Hive Mind: Iris cvv.

Three or four weeks ago, I was talking to my Dad on the phone, and he mentioned that the Irises where he and Mom live (fairly close, south of us) had buds on them already, and that they were sufficiently developed that you could tell what color the flowers were going to be.

We didn't have any Iris buds at that point, but about a week after that conversation, I saw a couple stalks were forming.