Plant combinations

Most of my flower beds and containers are jumbles of color and texture, mixtures of plants that catch my eye. Sometimes the combinations work, sometimes they don’t. What do you like to plant together? What flowers or colors make good combinations? These are some of mine that are pleasing to me right now. Click on any photo to enlarge.

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Caladiums and ferns

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Marigolds, ageratum, polka dot plant

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_{Caladiums & white impatiens, pink roses & bishops weed, red & white vinca}

    
_{Pink & purple wave petunias, mixed-color coleus, dark purple petunias & orange marigolds}

    
_{ferns & ivy, African daisies & polka dot plant, pink impatiens & purple petunias}

Shy African Daisy

African Daisy after a rain shower :)

Bees and flowers and August heat

With temps in the upper 90s and extremely high humidity for the past few days, it’s a slow and lazy time here right now. Our temperature tomorrow is predicted to be over a hundred degrees..
At night, I can hear the roar of a million katydids, and during the day, the drone of the bees, sluggish and drunk on abundant nectar.

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Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.
-Sam Keen

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Bee on pink coneflower

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Bee on wild sunflower

bee and coneflower

bee and butterfly bush

bee and zinnia

Click to enlarge.

Blueberries galore

Anybody know any good blueberry recipes? :) We have two large blueberry bushes and they are absolutely filled with blueberries this year, so many that the branches are almost touching the ground from the weight. I picked this bowl (at left) this evening, and have been picking a few every day for a week or so.. and we are about to have a huge harvest ready for picking. I usually freeze a ton of these berries every year and we have them all throughout the winter. We do nothing to these bushes, no fertilizer or pesticides, and they are surprisingly pest-free and easy to grow (the birds do get a few of them). They thrive on a hot, dry slope behind our house.

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Click to enlarge.

Silver-spotted skipper

Silver-spotted Skippers are very common here, and I see dozens of these butterflies every day. The white butterfly bush is filled with them, and they love the zinnias as well. An interesting bit of info about these butterflies, according to this butterfly guide, they almost never visit yellow flowers, but favor blue, red, pink, purple, and sometimes white and cream-colored ones.

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Skipper and butterfly bush

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Skipper and zinnia

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Click to enlarge.