Giant dahlia

File this under the "We forgot we planted it" category. About two months ago we noticed a very large stalk growing in one of our flower beds. Aaron thought it looked "weedy" and was tempted to pull it. Then a similar one revealed itself in a mirrored spot across the yard. Too coincidental. Soon we discovered some very large buds on the stalks. They were the size of golf balls!

Every day I came home from work eager to see if they had bloomed. But no. They took for-evah! I swear one small petal would slightly unfurl a day. We joked they would bloom and die all in one day and we would miss the entire show.

Finally it happened! The buds opened up into giant blooms. We had dahlias!

Here is my hand to try and show how ginormous these flowers are. But wait. I have little hands.

Here it is next to my head! The dahlia is as BIG AS MY HEAD! I think it might be a Hollyhill Big Pink Dahlia.

Hmmm. It doesn't look as big with this photobombers head next to it.

A rose by any other name you can't figure out...

We planted a lot of new bulbs and seeds this past year. Unfortunately sometimes I forget to write down what we plant and it's a bit of a mystery when flowers come up.

I knew this was a cosmos. That was no problem.

This one stumped me. Like a cross between a cosmos and a daisy. Luckily Aaron found an app to help us identify these flowers!

Like That Garden app lets you take a picture of a flower and then it offers up suggestions of what it might be. We use it to identify neighbor's flowers that we like!

Using this app I was able to figure out that the mystery flower is a Chrysanthemum, Tricolor Daisy.

And I also learned that this weird looking daisy is a Crazy Daisy or Leucanthemum.

They aren't wilting. They look like this all the time. Like a daisy that just rolled out of bed.

Tiger Flower

We planted a circle of bulbs around a tree... and then checked everyday to see what came up.

Suddenly this weekend a couple of the flowers popped out. We were amazed at what we saw. The blooms look like a cross between an orchid and a lily.

The flower is called a Tigridia Pavonia or also called Tiger Flower, Peacock Flower, Jockey's Cap Lily or Mexican Shell Flower.

One bloom only lasts a day. They bloom early in the morning and close around 5pm. Aaron jokes that they are timed exactly when we can't see them. As I pull into the driveway they say "Here she comes!" *plop*

They come in other shades of red, orange and yellow so now I want more!

Flowers

Flowers around my parent's house.

Wisteria.

Poor butterfly missing a chunk.

Bleeding heart.

Mini-sunflower

Every year I try to plant sunflowers. For some reason I can't get them to grow. I highly suspect squirrels are digging the seeds up and are eating them.

This year I even put little mesh cages around the seeds. Very late in the season, I got one very small sunflower. Note the pug saw placement for sizing.

Flower necklaces

For little Easter gifties I designed flower necklaces for my peeps. I started with a few of my flower photos and then came up with a word that matched each friend to go with a flower.

I printed the flowers out and put them in empty pendants. To fill them in, I found this really cool Mod Podge product called Dimensional Magic that acts like epoxy.

I learned a few lessons along the way. #1 glue down the photo before you squirt in the Mod Podge - I didn't do that and the photos floated to the top. #2 pop any bubbles with a needle -when I pushed the photos back down they made bubbles. The bubbles stayed and now they get in the way of the words. I probably wouldn't have got bubbles in the first place if I had glued the photos down.

The bubbles bug me and I will probably make another batch to replace these bubbly ones.

Mini-orchid

I got this orchid at Wegmans. What you can't tell from the picture is it is a mini-orchid!

Before it bloomed the buds were the size of peanut.

I tried to hold a quarter next to the flower so you can see how small it is, but it just looks like I'm holding the quarter really close to the camera.

You will just have to take my word for it. It's a tiny orchid!