Flora

Can anyone tell me the name of this plant? I bought a small 4-pack at the beginning of spring from the local hardware store without noting the name. I'm so surprised at what they've grown to be. These gorgeous blooms - both pink and red- are stunning. This impressive plant is 5' tall with buds and flowers running up and down it's sturdy stalk.

It's a family joke that I can't grow pumpkins(or anything, really). Though I try every year, the best I've produced was a lousy, small, green, impish pumpkin last year. It's pathetic. My husband and kids laugh at me. To further fuel their ruthless mockery, our neighbor, Jan, has a huge yard filled with the most beautiful and productive garden I've ever seen. She has rows of vegetables and flowers and berries and fruit trees and who knows what else. It's an extremely impressive garden - my family admires it, as well they should. For me, however, it's a constant reminder of my failures. I firmly believed, from my past performances, that a green thumb was forever beyond by grasp, until this year. I finally found the perfect, sunny spot to plant my little garden. This is a picture I took today of the two tiny pumpkin plants I put in the ground 3 months ago. Today they look like they're taking over the yard and maybe they are. I noticed they have a plethora of little, adorable, sweet pumpkins on their prickly, fat vines getting ready, I hope, to plump up to be a nice, big and deep orange prize for the fall harvest. I'm so happy. I want so badly to have a real pumpkin patch with a respectable selection so the kids can pick their own jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. I'm crossing my fingers for success. (Please, please, please, don't die before your time.) Unfortunatley, from my most recent survey of the area, I believe there's a good chance that I am sacrificing the lives of my other plants that dwell in the middle of this insane quest for success. I think the innocent lavender is in serious danger of being smothered and suffocated by these monster, but brilliant, plants - So be it. I want pumpkins. I want the snickering to stop.

A bloom from the mystery plant.

It looks like a peony, sort of. (Can you find the bug?)

For the past 2 springs, JT and the kids have surprised me by planting a garden in the dirt that lines our driveway. This year they picked orange marigolds, pink petunias and this beautiful black eyed susan came back from last years planting. It's like a welcoming smile every time I drive up the driveway.

One of the bonuses of living here is the magnificant soil. I moved from Granite Bay - aptly named, where I couldn't dig a small hole for a little plant without a very serious effort and a chisel. Families, who contracted for pools, often faced huge added expenses because the contractor needed explosives to get through the rock. We don't have that problem here. The soil is perfect and very few people have pools.

Side note: The term flora comes from the latin language - Flora, the goddess of flowers in Roman mythology.