Foxglove Hybrid Flower | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Foxglove Hybrid Flower | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet this Foxglove Hybrid Flower! If you are new to my blogs, photographs you may not have seen this Hybrid in the past? We have had these growing now for three years I think (without going back and looking).

As with the past years these Foxglove grow near the Bell Flower, or the Bell Flower grow near the Foxglove? Either way this is what I believe this Foxglove Hybrid came from, these two flowers interbreeding with each other. Of course this is just my theory of observation in my garden.





Since these Hybrids grow as a Foxglove would, I do not know which Foxglove will look like this until blooming time. The Bell Flowers took some time to establish themselves here. Once the Bell Flowers established themselves, and we chose to grow the Foxglove inside our private area, did we get this funky looking flower blooms.

You can see from the shot above, the top flower blooms are the ones who open up in this funky manor that the typical Foxglove Flower Blooms just do not open up as these hybrids do.





I have read some of the hype on the computer about this funky looking Foxglove Hybrid. Some saying there is no way that a species like the Foxglove can possibly breed with another species of flowers. Why not? Why cant a species of flower breed with another type of flower? I personally feel trying to control nature is like holding back the tide from coming in.....

This Hybrid Foxglove Flower Bloom was not something that was planned here in our garden, it just happened one year and has continued year after year. The seeds are the only way I can think of, of how this can happen the past what three years here in our garden? We do contain this hybrid flower within the private part of our garden so far. The typical Foxglove Flower that folks know of is one of those Flowers that we, or I have to contain within our yard.

As some people know the Foxglove is also a plant that if used in the wrong manor, or if it spreads to livestock it may not have the effect people really want. Thus containing the very good seed producing seed pods, or dead heading. As soon as a seed pod is forming, pinch it off before the seed pod matures. Keeping only the color of Foxglove you want.





The Hybrid Flower above has not opened up all the way yet. It takes them some time to fully open up in the funky manor you seen above. We do keep the Foxglove Flowers away from the dogs who have chewed on the leaves they could get to before, as puppies it was more so. Making the dogs sick of course! These Hybrids I do not recall the dogs being able to get to? We grow the flowers in our private area inside the six foot dog fence, inside another fence. We just find this way best for our Flowers and to keep the dogs from chewing on leaves the best we can. The dogs are allowed to chew on the Raspberry leaves and stems all they want to, the raspberries are safe to eat. I can not express enough, Foxglove Flowers are NOT safe for dogs, cats etc., people to eat!!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my Hybrid Foxglove Flowers!

Bumblebee Hard At Work | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Bumblebee Hard At Work | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet again this Bumblebee! This Bumblebee is working on a Foxglove Flower, even this big Bumblebee can still fit into the flower blooms!





This Bumblebee acts aggressive but really, never had a bad experience. This species will challenge you by aggressively flying quickly into your face, or check you out by circling you. This is what bumblebee's do with flowers, they go round and round. They work on some flower blooms by circling them as well. This is just from my observations, if the Bumblebee does that in front of me I am sure they show the same behavior in your garden?

I do like the shot above showing the two sets of wings!



Some photographs I use ONLY for id use, some are stand alone photographs. Which is which is something I have to decide as the photographer. I feel I may put a couple of these shots out in the public as stand alone photographs? We will just have to wait and see?





I do not use my tripod all that much. Why? I feel tripods are restrictive when it comes to wildlife. I am not that far away from my subjects. If they would allow me closer I would change lenses and get in closer ha! Fact is I had a visitor here yesterday who did not stick around long and who was just to close! I did not have the time to change lenses..... if you are a photographer you know not everything comes out the way you see it in your head. All we can do is do our best!





This is the last photograph of this series I am showing. I am going to try to limit my photographs on these blogs to six or less. Lets see how I do with that ha!

Thank you for coming by and checking out this Bumblebee working hard on this Foxglove Flower. BTW the Foxglove does have it's bad point however the great thing about growing Foxglove Flowers is? The pollinators LOVE the Foxglove!

Rose Bloom in Orange

Rose Bloom in Orange




Meet our one of our Roses! Like several of our other Roses this to is a climbing Rose, with a nice color and the scent is not to bad either!



Roses are one of those flowers many people have. Guy is the Rose buyer here at our home. He looks at peddle count, and is real fond of the climbers!! This Rose is not a huge climber as our others. It does cover quite a lot of the six foot fence with many blooms! We actually gave away recently a couple of our climbers due to space. We do not have much land so every inch of space is valuable. I will miss those climbing Roses, however they all went to good homes!

This Orange Rose has a hint of yellow inside the peddles and we have had it for several years now! We did not have scare with our Roses. Warmth then we got a freeze! It looks like all our established Roses are coming back! The black death was clipped, and new shoots of growth is being seen! Black death is something I just say for if you grow roses you know of the black death and how much you do not want to see it!

Guy claimed he was not going to buy anymore Roses..... guess what he brought home lately??

The Roses attract Butterflies, Hoverflies,I have even photographed frogs inside the peddles of our Roses!!

Thank you for coming by and seeing my photographs of this Rose!

Bumblebee and the Cosmos Flower Bloom

Bumblebee and the Cosmos Flower Bloom




Meet one of our common pollinator here at our garden! Round and round the bee goes!



If photographs do talk for us there is not a whole lot more I can say! You can see the photographs I took for yourself!



This flower is the Cosmos Flower.



































We do have several kinds of Bee's here at the house now, even though there is not to much to eat out there at the moment!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my Photographs!

Heliotrope Flower Bloom

Heliotrope Flower Bloom




Meet the Heliotrope blooms and plant!



Not sure why I do not give these container plants more attention then I do? These have to be the top fragrant flowers we have? Profuse bloomer of these purple little flowers and the foliage dose not look bad either!

Here in our part of the High Desert of Oregon we grow this in one of our big containers! For us this Heliotrope does not survive our cold winters. Guy claims if we brought it inside it might?

Pollinators - no real pollinators to speak of that I have observed.

The spot for the Heliotrope is a extremely sunny location which is not shared with the public. The soil is my own mix, part low grade cheep house plant soil (found anywhere and everywhere. To me I see this as a filler, like white rice. It does not have to much value however it fills a belly),part peat moss, part high quality soil we have to drive to get, part mushroom, part steer . When I can find good guano I have a tendency to throw that into the mix.... this works for us!

Watering is two times a day with no exceptions ! A big misconception some folks have in our part of Oregon is, you can water one or two times a week and your garden will flourish. This is just not the case! Guy did stick up for folks saying if they keep the water on all day and night two times a week they may get away with some plants? We also disagree with the using the run off from the big farms and ranches. I wont use this water that we pay dearly for. If I can not drink the water, the dogs, cat can not drink that water there must be something nasty about it, right? I am sure it is fine for such things as lawn? Water is a hot topic for me so I will leave this issue or start ranting.....

I highly recommend this flower to grow! Perhaps we should try it in the ground some day??

Thank you for coming by and checking out the photographs of this day of the Heliotrope!

White Verbena Flower

White Verbena Flower




Meet the White Verbena Flower! These and the other colors were blooming in the end of July 2014.



We grow our Verbena in a huge pot and place it directly in the South Eastern light. The Verbena do very well for us in this location so why change?

I checked on the Verbena just yesterday and they look like they are coming back just fine. Come to think of it in 2014 the Verbena did start growing outside the pot where seeds dropped, though never bloomed. We have this white, we have red, and we have a purple / blue colors.



The Verbena appear to be pretty hardy here in the High Desert with watering two times a day. The soil consists of my mix of mushroom,steer, peat moss, and a high end soil we have to drive to Bend Oregon to buy in bulk if we can find it!!

Verbena attracts the common Pollinators who do their thing and walla seeds! We have had these Verbena growing in this same container for gosh four years? Perhaps longer? This is the Verbena container haha! I would have to go back into my photograph archive to find the exact years the Verbena has been flowering in that container, point being they keep coming back year after year! Knock on wood!

Thank you for coming by checking out these photographs of the White Verbena Flowers blooming on this day!

Gloriosa Daisy Blooming in September

Gloriosa Daisy Blooming in September




Meet again the Gloriosa Daisy! These flowers were still blooming in late September 2014!



Unlike the Black Eyeed Susan these Gloriosa Daisies have a ring of color, if not color through out the yellow. Nice looking flowers if you ask me!







Gosh does any two Gloriosa Daisies look alike? That is the question?



The Gloriosa Daisy grew most everywhere we sprinkled some seeds at!

Pretty easy to grow!



Thank you for coming by and checking out our Gloriosa Daisy's and my photographs of them!

Blooming Painted Daisy

Meet the Painted Daisy Bloom!



The Painted Daisy comes in many colors!! These were grown in the ground in 2014 and in 2015 I think I will try some in containers and see how they do here in the High Desert?

All the Painted Daisies for us bloomed on the north side of the property. I found it interesting that this plant is used as a natural insecticide.... repelling what we all consider, "bad insects", as well as tasting nasty to the browsing creatures. I of course just think these are lovely flowers!

As for the creatures who eat the garden up... I have yet to see a squirrel in our whole town! Seeing them outside of town on a farm, however this was a couple miles from town. We do have rabbits! At one time someone released pet rabbits!! Those have pretty much disappeared, after all we do have the birds of prey and the coyotes and the pet rabbits stick out with their colors that do not do well for surviving in such a town as ours! Wild bunnies are a whole different story!! They can be little stinkers!

Since we are early risers the deer have also been seen here in town. Though people have done pretty good about running them out of the town. Nothing like having the Mule Deer eating everything in site!! Dose not mean the Mule Deer do not spend the night and leave before sunrise!

I personally had a terrible time there for a couple years with someones pet ducks and chickens! The roosters would be under my window crowing hahahaha! I laugh for I got so mad! Now I can laugh about it ha! These pets ate up everything, so I was continually chasing them off!

The wild birds do nibble, however they really do not do all that much damage. Dogs, dogs do damage!! Why our dogs have their area! I can not do much about the dogs people do not keep at home.... charging our fence which means they have to go through the flower beds is something we just deal with. Also owners allowing their dog to urinating on our flowers is also something we just deal with.



Some flowers do great in the ground, while others do better in a container. Some flowers prefer one over the other here in our area. What you see is just a small part of a plant. The real goings on is under the soil where we can not see! So in 2015 I think I will play around with the soil and the Painted Daisy, time permitting of course!



I like these, they add some real flashy color to the flower beds!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my photographs of my Painted Daisies!

Hoverfly On The Cosmos Flower Bloom

Hoverfly On The Cosmos Flower Bloom




Meet the Hoverfly. I have several other posts of the Hoverfly. This Hoverfly is busy on a Cosmos Flower Bloom. Hoverflies are beneficial to our gardens!



I ran across someones post gosh it was lately, however I cant remember whose? As if I would name drop anyways which I try not to do..... The thing that was written sounded as if the writer did not realize the Hoverfly is a beneficial insect. The ultimate insect we like to see in our gardens is of course the Honey Bee, however the Honey Bee is disappearing at alarming rates. This is a sad fact. Thus many gardeners are seeing other beneficial insects helping out like this species of Hoverfly.

I also grow plants inside the house. Bare with me here as I get this thought out. I noticed as one of my Spider plants was continuously flowering and giving me seeds what on earth is pollinating this house plant? So I watched..... results? House flies were in fact pollinating this Spider Plant of mine! Of course we are not real fond of these house flies, we also have blow flies here in our area do to the cattle, other lifestock in our area. Same results. These nasty , dirty insects are in fact pollinating our flowers and my house plants! I much rather have the Hoverfly then these kinds of flies! However we do not invite anything inside the house, they just show up just like everyone elses homes. Point being is pollinating. I get seeds off not only my Spider Plant......



You can see by the shadow of these shots I do use natural sunlight. The sun just happened to be positioned in the sky to cast the shadows you see.



I am not sure why we have a healthy population of such things as the Hoverfly? I have a theory that is all it is though. This theory of mine is , we had a neighboring property that was uncared for. Being uncared for , for the years it was resulted in natives plants flowering. Weeds really. These native weeds brought the Hoverfly in. A nice population of them! Now the home and property is cared for, we will just have to see what happens in 2015......



I may allow these native plants, basically weeds do there thing in one spot of the property, however the town does spray chemicals to kill such things. We do not use such things here, however we do understand why the town sprays the sides of the roads. Some of our roads are dirt, then covered with rocks. Native weeds will take over the world! Causing fires when the life cycle is over and the plants / flowers dry up. Driving over these dried up flowering, "weeds", the undercarriage of your vehicle will start fires. Wildfires are something everyone should be mindful of in the High Desert where we can get very dry. How many folks think of just driving over dry vegetation will cause a wildfire? When I first moved over here I never thought of such a thing! A second, (maybe third?), generation rancher / farmer here made this very clear to me!



There are many species of Hoverfly! This is the common species we have. The face I have noticed seams familiar with the Hoverflies I have seen here. Big eyes! Like a fly will have, and of course the different kinds of Hoverfly, hover! They beat their wings very quick allowing them to hover over the flowers in which they help pollinate! Dont kill them, just watch what happens with your fruit, flowers etc. !

Thank you for coming by my post! Happy growing in 2015!

Skipper Butterfly on The Zinnia Flower

Skipper Butterfly on The Zinnia Flower




Meet a Skipper Butterfly that visits our garden every year. Skipper Butterflies are called this for they flutter, or skip from place to place. Not always flowers but to feed the flowers are the place to find them!



The Zinnia Flower patch of ours attracts many such creatures both big and small to their bright colors to feed. Once the creatures are feeding and get used to you, the photography gets easier.



We do get several butterflies here to the garden which I like to see. Fact is here it is February 18, and I saw a bigger butterfly fluttering about yesterday and some smaller moths which was somewhat of a surprise to me since after all it is still winter! Our garden has nothing for these creatures to feed on at the moment.



Soon our garden will be blooming once again and we will see such creatures showing up as we have year after year! Soil is being prepared and/or cleaned up and sprouts of flowering plants are seen everywhere. The weather is being funny, warm for this time of the year. If we do not have a hard frost everything should be blooming early!

Thank you for coming by and checking out this short series of photographs!

Sand Lily Growing in Jefferson County Oregon

Sand Lily Growing in Jefferson County Oregon




Meet the Sand Lily! This beautiful wild flower is just one that blooms here in the High Desert of Oregon, the county of Jefferson County Oregon. Overlooked by many for it blooms as you can see very low to the ground.



We do know of a spot that these do bloom and our quite impressive to see!! The soil one would think nothing but sage brush could grow in! Wrong!



Because our area is such a unique desert, being east of the Cascade Mountains to the west, and the Ochoco Mountains to the east our area is a unique place! To the untrained eye our area may look rather ...... empty. However take the time to look around and you too may just see these Sand Lily as well!

I like to note, this spot also is home to the Pygmy Short-horned Lizard.



Because the Sand Lily blooms on the desert floor I have never even attempted to try and dig one up to bring home. I just do not feel it would survive. Plus both Guy and I agree the tap root could be very deep into the ground, doing more harm then good to try and remove this pretty wildflower.



This is also a edible plant from the Asparagaceae family. However I am not comfortable just reading something and running out to try it. A connection of mine and I spoke on twitter of foods and how I can be "picky", about such things. I do not recommend anyone putting things into their mouth just because you read it......



This wildflower is just extremely pretty and a nice bit of color on the desert floor!! Being from the Valley west of the Cascade Mountains I had not grown up stepping on such things! The Sand Lily also does not grow everywhere, or at all times here in the High Desert. I am hoping to go to this spot in 2015 in April to see if they will be blooming. The way it is going here, hoping to go several times. Early if possible since we are in drought conditions and everything seams to be growing early.

Plus like I said the Pygmy Short-horned Lizard is at this spot and I would like to spend more time with that lizard.



If you do happen to visit us here in Jefferson County Oregon (we are a hour north give or take from Bend Oregon. We are home to Lake Billy Chinook which is known by many people), bring your water and take a walk. Keeping in mind that we may not have large, giant things growing here.... however we have other things growing here that are quite pretty to see like the Sand Lily! Be careful of the Pygmy Short-horned Lizard! The lizard is horribly small and blend right in to their environment! You may think you are looking at a rock until it takes off like a flash!!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my photographs of the Sand Lily that was photographed outside of the city of Madras Oregon growing on the desert floor. Come to think of it, this could have been on the Ochoco National Grasslands ....