Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Shimmery Flowers
I'm such a pushover for shimmery flowers. My oldest daylily, 'Medallion', is one that has a nice sparkle to it.
You can see the individual sparkles if you look closely. (Click through and zoom all the way in.)
But lately I've noticed a shimmer where I don't remember seeing one before - on petunias. Some of these 'Balcony' petunias have an interesting satiny sheen. I grew them from seed and planted out 20 or 30 seedlings. Not all the flowers have the shimmer - some are what I would call "ordinary" petunias and some are very velvety (like the burgundy one at the top center of the photo).
I despaired of getting a good photo of the flowers in place, so finally snipped a few stems and placed them in the sun where I could get the camera at the proper angle. A closer look at the petals here reveals a light reflection similar to the daylily, except more finely textured.
People get paid to study this stuff. I'm in the wrong career.
6 Comments:
Some colors of petunias do have a silk-like texture to them...polished, almost. Very pretty!
That sparkle attracts me too, Entangled... almost every daylily that I circled in the hemerocallis catalogs included the words "diamond dusted" in the description. I never noticed it in petunias but will now have to look!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Wow, those petunias are amazing!
Yeah... I'm in the wrong career, too! :) But I never noticed the sparkle on those daylilies or petunias before... very nice. I'm going to have to go take a little stroll around the garden and see what other "diamond dust" I can find.
Every woman needs a bit of sparkle in her life! What's better than on the flowers in the garden!
Nancy: Polished is a great way to describe it. I'd really never noticed this effect in petunias before.
Annie: I'm glad to see that the catalog writers have are pointing out the sparkle. If I get bold enough to defy the deer with some new daylilies, I'll definitely seek out the diamond dusted ones.
Gina: The more I grow old-fashioned plants, the more I like them. I never knew petunias could do that shiny thing.
Blackswamp Girl: It's hard to remember that far back, but I'm pretty sure that when I was in high school nobody ever mentioned that you could study sparkly plants for a living. ;-) I've noticed the same sparkles in some daffodils, but can't think now where else I might have seen it. Time to go look.
Layanee: I'll take my sparkle wherever I can find it ;-)
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