Saturday, July 05, 2008

Where There's Smoke ... there's a Smoke Bomb!

Just for fun ... Fernymoss set off two orange and blue smoke bombs just to the right of the 'Finger Rock' just so I could see what I would get with the camera. I used the continuous shooting mode and did a whole series of shots, three of which I'm including in this post. See all those partying Eryngium toward the front there? A lot of them have since departed to the compost. I dearly love "Miss Wilmot," but she's just been partying too hard this year and has been taking over other plants' space, so she had to get thinned out. I'll be collecting the seeds when they're ready, as I've already had a couple of requests for them. And for those who need 'claybusters,' you might consider this, or another Eryngium variety because they have enormous taproots (a few were the size of carrots!). At the right very front edge of the boulder bed, you can see some Bells of Ireland peeking out from down below....
In this second shot y ou can clearly see both colors, before they merged into one huge cloud. We had considered doing a whole 'rainbow' arrangement of smoke bombs, but ultimately decided that might be a bit too much, lol. Again this was a pre-weeding photo, and you can now see the 'Finger Rock' fully revealed and we have space to put a lot of the annuals in ... we're going to put that new Celosia variety we discovered a couple of weeks ago ... it's a real beauty! Already about 3 ft high in its pot!
In this last shot you can still clearly see the two colors before they merged into one huge amorphus cloud that slowly engulfed everything and drifted away ... we were hoping it would send the mosquitoes packing for tonight, but no, I got well bitten while I was taking those fireworks shots posted earlier. Tomorrow night, the Cutter Bug Free Backyard is going to treat the entire Casa IVG area. It's time for another spraying, because they've been so numerous and vicious this year!

We meant to get it done last night, but sloth set in and we ended up watching two George Carlin performances. We saw George Carlin at Carnegie Hall, which was outstanding (from 1982). We also watched Messin' With Your Head, which impressed me much less with its more bitter edge, though it certainly did have its moments. The whole film noir prologue and epilogue, however, just escaped me ... he should have just gone out on stage and gotten to it. We still have four more concert shows to watch that were part of that night long tribute HBO had right after his death. The one I'm really itching to see is from 1977 at UCLA. That ought to be good, and I bet it has the infamous "Seven Words" in it! Can't wait ....

9 comments:

Gail said...

You are having way too much fun with the smoke bombs...but you sure put those weeds on notice that you meant business. IVG declares war on weeds!

Thanks for the clay buster tips! I do like the Eryngium and might try to squeeze it in. It is crowded in the sunny bed....cheek to jowl! I would expand it but there is a ledge of limestone just next to it, about 2 inches below the surface. On the other side is the driveway!

So funny, DH and I were ruminating over things we would do differently. Mine were all about the garden! His were not!

I like the photo shoot, the blue is a wonderful color and almost impossible to find in a flower.

Have a lovely day.

Gail

Gail said...

ps

I meant to hit edit comment, but hit publish instead...oh well, you get to read what I write before I weed and amend it!

Gail

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

Looks like you had a lot of fun on the 4th. Smoky blooms!

Larry Kollar said...

Hm, I'll have to try that: smoke 'em out and weed out the survivors!

Went out blackberry picking today, got 3 gallons. I'm thinking… 3.1415926…

boran2 said...

That's an interesting experiment, IVG. Performance art as it were.

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Hi Gail,
I should do a post on the blues we have, and are always seeking more ... you're right. It's an elusive color to get right, but they are out there. Maybe you missed the Alpine Blue columbines earlier, but we do have great examples. But Miss Wilmot, what can I say? Ok, yeah she's been haunting a bit too enthusiastically the last couple of years. I'll put you on the list for seeds anyway, hehe.

I'll be doing a full post soon on it, where I've got even better pictures of that ghostly blue they get.

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Hi MMD,
Yeah, it was actually a relaxing 4th this year and fun ... I only had to grill/cook for the two of us, not a throng of folks. What a relief, and we got some good weeding in out front too. We did even more today and things are finally shaping up (more perennials and annuals to plug in tomorrow). 2 new RED hibiscus! Woo hoo!

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Hey FAR,
We just did it on a lark. Don't think it smoked any weeds out, but we were out there in force today and hope we got all of particularly invasive Heliopsis!

It did look cool though and I had fun with the cam, so hey... boys will be boys!

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

B2, now I would have never thought of performance art, but now that you mention it ... Yeah, that's what it was! It's your story and I'm sticking to it!