The Orchid Seed Pod Opens!

Orchid seed pod maturing.

Orchid seeds are notoriously slow-growing. With so many other lovely spring and summer flowers and gardening chores, photographing the developing seed pod had fallen off my radar since last March. By August when I took this photo, the pod was noticeably longer and fuller. Surprisingly, bits of the tepals (petals and sepals together) and column structure are still hanging on. Herb asked me how much longer it would be before it opened, and I had no idea, it could be a month or several, or even a year?

About two weeks ago the seed pod began to turn yellow and shrivel. A few days later I noticed a crack along the side, and some hairy stuff inside became visible.

I presume the tiny seeds are somewhere in there. A week later the pod has continued to open more by twisting itself so that the opening in now facing downwards--to facilitate the seeds dropping?

And here's what the inside looks like. I don't know what function the hairy fluff serves--does it protect the seeds, does it help propel them like parachutes? I don't have the ability to grow orchid seedlings, as they need a very particular sterile environment and mycorrhizal fungi from the plant's roots, but observing the whole process from fertilization to seed has been a fascinating study.

Looking inside the seed pod.

Asters and Mums

Asters and chrysanthemums.

The morning was noticeably chillier, a presage of the coming equinox next week. The days have been getting shorter--dusk around seven-thirty, pitch dark by eight PM, and that means less gardening time in the evenings. And with so much planting to do! The three new roses I had ordered back in August arrived yesterday, the other shrubs and trees are bound to ship in the next week or two. I have a lot of work to do to prepare the new sites.

Marigolds and chrysanthemums.

This year the magenta aster that was so spectacular last year has not bloomed well. The buds formed way too early, probably because of the cool weather, and I pinched them back, but the new buds formed thinly and dried out quickly in the heat. The mums also budded out early and were pinched back with better results. Part of what I love about gardening are the unplanned color combinations that sometimes just happen, like this orange-red marigold with the dusky pink mum, or the lovely pink and lavender asters above with the yellow mums. It inspires the artist to be bolder experimenting with color.

The star of my garden this year has been the red coleus I took as a cutting from the landscaping at my old office two years ago. I planted the rooted cutting in a sunny bed and took cuttings from that to keep it alive through the winter. This spring I took cuttings again and set them out under the shade of the cherry tree where they make a stunning display.

The hardy begonias introduced from my old garden seem to have finally colonized under the tree, they came back stronger this spring than the previous year. With luck, they will continue to spread and form a large clump.

Hardy Begonia (Begonia grandis subspecies evansiana).

On the Last Day of August

Wildflower at Hog's Wallow overlook.

On the last day of August Herb and I took David and his girl for a drive along Skyline Drive to celebrate the holiday weekend. Native wildflowers abound on Skyline, but we had not visited the park this late in summer before, and it was fun to see so many colorful wildflowers everywhere-- in banks along the road, and masses in the open spaces. We stopped at some of the many scenic overlooks to catalog the flowers as we watched a summer storm building up across the valley.

Reaching Hog's Wallow overlook (around 3,000 ft. elevation) we could see an expanse of wild sunflowers (Helianthus spp.) growing side by side with Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp.) and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta.), with boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) and white and lavender asters at the shadier edges of the forest.

Red clover and wild phlox with Goldenrod in back.

At other overlooks we found wild phlox, red clover, queen anne's lace, knapweed (Centaurea), milkweed (Asclepsias syriaca) and tall goldenrod about to bloom. A stray monarch butterfly visited the milkweed and David managed to get a photo, but the butterfly spooked before I could get shot of it. We stopped at Hemlock Springs to see if any orchid seed pods could be spotted, an impossible task as the banks were overgrown with many other lovely flowers, some of which I had not seen before. Among these the most unusual was the Turtlehead (Chelonia glabra), forming dense mounds about 3 and a half foot high. Clumps of jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) with boneset and Joe Pye weed completed the artistic arrangement.

Turtlehead and jewelweed with boneset and Joe Pye weed in back.

Close up of Chelonia flowers.

Jewelweed, sunflowers and boneset.

We drove south as far as Skyland, one of the two hotels in the park. The cool breezes at this elevation were a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the valley, signalling the thunderstorm was rapidly approaching. .

David and  Lili at an overlook.

After a short break we started our drive back and not a moment too soon--tiny drops of rain soon built up to a nice summer shower.  The brunt of the storm, which passed over the ridge just to our north, seemed to miss us. After the rain passed we stopped at a couple of overlooks to take in the dramatic views to the east. We could hear the distant rumble of thunder and saw a few flashes of lightning. Plumes of cloud rose from the folds of the hills.

When we got home I was happy to see our rain gauge showed that we'd received a half inch here in Front Royal--thank you, Mother Nature, for watering my garden!