This saffron crocus is a welcome bit of color as the rest of the blooms and foliage are fading. I just need a few more of these beauties to bloom before I can make some saffronated rice.
Crocus sativus
Category Archives: gardening
trying not to kill the beautiful things
Saffron Is In My Future
I planted two dozen Crocus sativus corms earlier this autumn. Today, the first flower emerged, bearing three dark orange threads of saffron.
This pollinator seems to enjoy having a late-season flower to visit. Hopefully she’ll have a few more blooms to choose from in the next few days!
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: October 2020
Last week was the first light frost of autumn in my Zone 6 garden. While these photos were taken before the frost, most of the blooms actually held up well.
Although I already made mention of this in last month’s Bloom Day post, I really have to thank Nan Ondra of Hayefield for making her seeds available online. This Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia) is seriously my new favorite annual, with dozens of blooms on many branched stems reaching six feet tall and nearly as wide. I hadn’t thought of orange as a color I’d want more of in my borders, but this plant changed my mind bigtime.
Continue readingGarden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: September 2020
These photos were all taken on September 15th, although it took a bit longer than anticipated for me to actually sit down and post them.
The sedum I moved to this container a few years back really seems to like it here. 
This potted kalanchoe lives outside until it gets too chilly… which will be soon. 
I bought Zahara Coral Rose Zinnia seeds from Jung Seed some three years ago. This zinnia is my kind of annual — I fully intend to broaden my zinnia horizons in 2021. 
David Austin Heritage English Rose produced several bloom flushes this year, and is finally almost the size she was before the Polar Vortex of several years back. 
Maypop (aka passion flower vine) is crazy invasive, but so beautiful. 
I might have let the Maypop vines get a little out of hand this summer. 
Dortmund climbing rose is stalwart and steady, year after year. 
I regularly “edit” this stand of goldenrod, right up until autumn. Then, when they show their colors, I’m glad to have missed a few. 
The purple Rose of Sharon didn’t make it through this past winter. I was (sort of) pleased to see purplish volunteers popping up by the white one. Before long, I may need to start pruning these into a hedge. 
This No-ID miniature rose is a trooper. She always is the first and the last in bloom, and her flowers open pink and mature to white. 
Amur honeysuckle is fruiting. I really need to prune this bad boy. 
I bought some Mexican sunflower seeds from Nan Ondra’s Etsy shop earlier this year. A+ will grow again! Fuzzy bumbles and hummingbirds alike adore these bright pops of orange. 
This volunteer Zebra Mallow seems to like living next to September Charm anemone. 
The panicle hydrangea never fails to impress. 
To play off the colors of the dwarf Japanese maple by the sunroom, I started some nasturtiums — John Scheepers Bloody Mary mix. I think this is a winning combination.
Thanks as always to Carol Michel for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th of each month! As Elizabeth Lawrence said, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.”
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: August 2020
I took the following photos on Bloom Day, which is the 15th of the month — after which I realized that I’d (temporarily) lost my mojo for processing digital photos on my desktop computer, since I’m so accustomed to uploading them via my phone. Silly HEIC image format, throwing a wrench into the works…
At any rate, here they are… mostly so Future Me can remember what was in bloom in August 2020.
