Skip to main content

An Orb Game in Portland

Thankfully, we and our gardens have survived the worst of a summer and are moving into the cooler days of fall, and still I haven't posted about the amazing Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland I was fortunate to attend back in July.  As always, the writing and photography of our talented group have captured the best of our annual gathering so well I've preferred to simply relive the fun through their posts.  

However, I do want to play a little game with the many orbs I kept seeing in the various gardens.  Some were split open to form fire pits or planters or rain basins, some were stuck on fences or poles, and others simply sat on a table or on the ground.  Oddly enough, one of the plants I brought home was Cotyledon orbiculata var. orbiculata - yet another "orb"! 

There were so many, it became a game for me to find them.  Here's just a sampling.
  






Look up against the fence for the smaller one, too!








If you went to the Fling, please leave a comment matching the garden to the orb.  I'll post the correct answers at the end of this month (September.)

All material © 2014 by Vicki Blachman for Playin' Outside
Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Comments

Layanee said…
And I thought I had nice orbs! Love these. Missed you this year Vicki. Maybe next or why don't you just come and visit.
VP said…
Good spot Vicky! I was so struck by all the glass orbs we saw, that I even found one to bring home. I haven't dared put it out in the garden though, it's far too precious for that. You found many more orbs than I did - I can only name about half of your pictures :-o
outlawgardener said…
I know some of them for sure but will have to think about a couple of them. Sphere not, I'll be back to play the matching game soon!
Pam/Digging said…
Ok, I'll play! I don't recognize them all, but here goes:
1. JJ De Sousa's garden
2. ?
3. ? Cool leaf orb though.
4. Linda Ernst's garden
5. Floramagoria (the fence looks like the Floramagoria scene I recognize in #6)
6. Floramagoria
7. Floramagoria
8. JJ De Sousa's
9. Fuller garden
10. Scott Weber's
11. Floramagoria (I think this is a Little and Lewis piece)
12. Linda Ernst's
vbdb said…
Your humor was truly missed, Layanee. I really might just have to make a trip to the ledge.
vbdb said…
Pam's the clear winner - but in case you wondered, #2 and #3 were also found in Linda Ernst's garden. I have at least 6 more orb/sphere pics that were snapped in other gardens, but the Ernst garden definitely had the most in one place.

Popular posts from this blog

Ho-hum to Habitat: My Path to Native Bees - Resources

San Antonio's Festival of Flowers will resume this Saturday, June 3, 2023, after a break of three years.    I've been given the opportunity to share how I garden, as well as a general overview of our native bees.   A link to a Google doc containing my handout (the info dense slides from my presentation) follows this list of resources.  Note that if you didn't attend, some of the handout pages may not make complete sense.     Hyperlinks to more resources: https://www.wildbeestexas.com/ https://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/jha/research/native-bee-communities https://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?collection=TX_central https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator.org/assets/generalFiles/BeginnerBeeFieldGuide_11March2022_LowRez.pdf https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/wildlife_diversity/nongame/native-pollinators/bumblebee-id.phtml https://www.pollinatorphotos.com/ https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/       https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yOIlJFjzgAlhc5nfTXkqrVutPxWHLwfQ/vie

A Plant with Purple Leaves

There are a couple of groups on Facebook where I lurk and occasionally dip my opinion into the fray.  They're places where people with knowledge of unbelievable scope can be observed, deftly identifying this obscure native plant or that scraggly left-behind orphan found in the backyard of a newly purchased home.   One such backyard orphan recently was posted in need of identification.   If it were a native plant, two people on "Texas Flora" would've named it within minutes.  Even the taxonomy of those impossible grasses is typically put to rest in seconds.  Not so with this poor guy.   At first I was fairly certain it was one of the purple leafed basils, maybe 'African Blue'.  It's fairly impossible to find it still thriving in a Texas January, but two plants in my yard are still hanging in there.  They even look like they'll come back if we don't have a deep freeze before spring.  BTW, this basil has one heck of a botanical monik

Ho-hum to Habitat

  For lack of a better way to reach everyone in person and online who attended my presentation to Williamson County Master Gardeners on 08 May 2023, I'm posting a handout here.  These are only the slides that were particularly info dense, so forgive the lack of context if you weren't an attendee.  Note that the list in the handout is only suggested for Travis and Williamson Counties - the Wildflower Center will have suggestions tailored to your specific location, and NOT just in Texas! These are live links to some of the items shown:  The Wildflower Center , The Jha Bee Lab , NPSOT's plant lists by Texas region , NPSOT Wilco ,  and finally, Lynne & Jim Weber (their books are available at your local bookstore & on Amazon.) T here's a world of other resources, too!  Check out Sam Drogge's incredible photography at the USGS Bee Inventory , follow Heather Holm on Facebook and read her books, follow Carol Clark on her blog "Carol's World" .  Seri