Chawan Basu

My lotus has been an ongoing project since last year. I bought it in the spring of 2008, and planted it in a tub in the back yard. The first year, it put up a few leaves, and then died back. The next year it put out more leaves, but it dried out in August of last year while we were out of town, and barely limped through the year. This year I bought it a new bowl, and took extra care in fertilizing it and making sure it had plenty of water. We were out of town last weekend, and the dang thing dried out again. The leaves got wilted all around the edges and I thought it was a bust again. But I noticed that there was a flower bud coming up on it, and made sure to keep up with the water again. I have been like a bird waiting for its egg to hatch. The bud stayed the same all week, but I thought yesterday that it looked like it was starting to swell up. I looked out the window this morning and this is what I saw:

'Prarie Fire' Silene

Here's a new bloom for the back yard rain garden. This is the new 'Prarie Fire' Silene plant that I got earlier this year. It's mature size will be around 3 feet tall, but it's only about knee high right now. It was a beautiful evening to get in some sorely needed weeding. It was overcast and cool, and the bugs were gone since it had just rained earlier. I had to severely prune back the roses....unfortunately I think they are all going to end up diseased. We'll see how they do.

And my 'Arabian Nights' dahlia finaly bloomed. I was worried that it wasn't going to come back this year since the winter was so cold.