Pale pink

Unidentified flower, found at the local Potter's:

Like a flower inside a flower.

(Leftovers from 6 weeks ago. I'm really behind on photo sorting.)

Flower mimic fly

At our local nursery, Potter's, there is a long, sunny bench of ground cover plants, raised to easy viewing height. A swarm of yellow and black flies was buzzing around them, often standing still in the air, just under my nose. I couldn't resist them, and spent some time chasing them with my little pocket camera.

They were far too quick for me; I got dozens of photos of places where they had been a split second ago.

One finally parked on a green flower, and pretended to be part of it.

Green wings, brown wings

Care and treatment of spring fever

Another day, another nursery. It's barely spring, but gardening fever has set in. We dropped in this afternoon at Potters. They'd just opened last Friday, and weren't near finished stocking; most of the area under cover was still empty, the tree and shrub section just bare mud, with a couple of cats. Workers dashed around, hauling carts of plants, tools, scraps of planking. A table held a box of small paint cans, and on a piece of cardboard, a paintbrush thick with drying blue paint.

There were three or four other customers; an old lady buying a hellebore, a man in to pick up a large order, another man who got into his van, empty handed, as we parked.

Most of the plants already laid out, perennials, are still tiny. There are few flowers, not even buds. The hostas in their pots were still under the mud. (Just like my hostas here at home.) But there were blooming primulas, tables of them. I found a couple more white ones; they show up so well in my deep shade at this time of year. And Laurie found the pansies he was after. And bought more soil. He always buys soil; you'd think he was trying to build a hill.

Half a table's worth of primulas. Not too many whites available this year.

Purple primulas

Pink and yellow

I loved these pale pink hellebores.

Most of our little load of plants. Laurie bought four more pansies and a fern.

It rained the rest of the afternoon. It's raining now. It will probably rain tomorrow. I don't mind; there will be plenty of time to start getting muddy.

The stuff of dreams

We didn't buy any of these, but I was tempted. Laurie didn't notice them; the ferns were just beyond, and drew his attention.

He cultivates one sunny patch suitable for veggies. He's talking about Swiss chard, which did well last year. I might put in a few lettuce again, to feed the slugs. I wonder if they like sweet peas?

As good as a rest

Coming home this afternoon, we were tired and footsore, but the colours were so tempting in the first nursery we passed, that we had to stop and walk all around the tables of bedding plants and the big yard full of trees and shrubs.

Statue in the shade, and Laurie in the background, blending in.

Basket stuffers

Almost green dogwood

Pink stripy dogwood

Lilac buds

White lilac

And red, red maple

Water droplet on hosta leaves

And on the hosta next to this one, I found a spider:

Long-jawed orb weaver. A common enough spider here in BC, but I'd never seen one. She was hanging in her web with the legs close together, underside out, so she looked more like a dried pine needle than an animal. If you look closely at the web, you can see bright dots of glue at the junctions.

When I shook the leaf, she dropped to the edge. At least I got a side view. Her head, compared to the abdomen, is quite short, and half of the apparent length is taken up by huge "jaws", actually the chelicerae. The male's would be bigger still. 

 "... The better to eat you with, my dear," said the wolf.