Thursday, April 17, 2014

snapdragons


Rocket snapdragons from maanursery.

Annuals. Several species, Several types actually. The Afghanistan snapdragons are hardly recognizable as such. Several sizes to choose from, 12" to 36". 

You can have 50 seeds for $3.00 + shipping from paceseeds. I bought several things from Pace this year and they are very good. The seeds arrive within a few days.

With snapdragons you can get a photograph of bees sitting comfortably inside as if having a siesta from busy bee activities.


And it is the cutest little thing.

All you have to do to achieve such photographic excellence is have a good camera and sit around a patch of snapdragons and watch for bees.

The bee is not taking a nap, rather, it never stops, it is seeking out young untouched damsel maiden snapdragons to roughly open them right up, as if a door, and crawl right in, and rape  and pillaging inside there, who know what they get up to once inside with the cover down, and then come crawling out drunk all covered with moist sticky bright yellow pollen from antennae to stinger and grinning from dilated eye to dilated eye.  Like this:


The flowers are called snapdragons because some species have what appears to be a menacing face and their petals separate when squeezed gently between two fingers giving the appearance of speaking. Without actually snapping. That's a bit oversell. So talking dragon then. It is a childhood thing to make the flower talk amusingly, to say dragonly things. Everybody does this. Come on, put on a little ventriloquism to it. 



When the flowers expire the petals wither and the dry stalks look the unkempt mess. If left alone pods will develop that contain tiny black seeds. The seed pods of some snapdragon species look like human skulls, [snapdragon seed pods] and let the anthropomorphism begin. 


Photo pinterest.

While others look like impish faces.


More  impish seedpod faces, ritebook.blogspot.

8 comments:

deborah said...

I've always loved snapdragons. An easy and carefree flower.

When we were young, at our old house, an old farmhouse the city had crept up on, we each had a little section of the foundation beds to manage. Mine was to the left of the front door. I always grew zinnias and bachelors buttons from seed, and impatiens.

Unknown said...

Snapdragons are such a pretty flower with a strange looking skull.

Zinnias. There's a house a few neighborhoods over with a large funky yard. They have a well with a fake shark head poking out the top devouring a dummy, an old railroad car, and an arrangement of really tall bird houses. (among other oddities) Anyway - they always display the best garden in their large sunny yard. The past few years they planted vast and impressive numbers of zinnias. Glorious.

ricpic said...

Why are the Afghanistan snapdragons "hardly recognizable as such?" They look like garden variety snapdragons to me.

Trooper York said...

Those skulls are pretty cool. What a great photo!

Amartel said...

The plants are making fun of us!
Those skull twigs are freaking me out.

rcocean said...

I love your positive outlook Chip. I looked at that Bee and thought, damn that must be a lot of work for the poor Bee, having to crawl in there, then rummage around, then crawl all the way out again.

Drunk on Pollen, or just tired?

rcocean said...

I love your positive outlook Chip. I looked at that Bee and thought, damn that must be a lot of work for the poor Bee, having to crawl in there, then rummage around, then crawl all the way out again.

Drunk on Pollen, or just tired?

Synova said...

Beautiful pictures.

Thanks. :)