The Fluffy Blob of Halloween Orange

  One of my favorite things to do is photograph things found here on the Bayou.  Mother Nature has been kind to me in supplying me with all sorts of opportunities.  The abundance and diversity of the flora and fauna astounds.  It seems that we have a little bit of just about everything one could desire.  Sometimes, however, certain things are a bit challenging for me to get a photograph that does justice.  Crazy as it may be, fauna is usually easier than flora!  Critters seem to be very photogenic while some of the flowers present problems.  Shouldn't it be just the opposite?  Plants just sit there!

  One of my most problematic subjects is the pomegranate blooms.  I adore these things as they are one of the only truly orange blooms in my gardens.  "Halloween Orange" is hard to come by.  Most plants are either more golden or more salmon in color.  Nope, the pomegranate is pure old "Halloween Orange"!  That said, it is also the most difficult for me to photograph.  The ruffly petals seem to always blur together in one big blob!  The fluffy petals get in the way of each other and refuse to cooperate, the color never is accurate and the detail is lost in the blur.

  It matters not.  Perhaps this shrub has issues with being photographed just as I do.  (I hate it which explains why I am always behind the camera!)  The blooms of the pomegranate in my garden are best when viewed personally and not through pictures.  There! That settles it!  Stroll through the gardens and you be pleasantly surprised at the beauty that is tucked neatly in the bright green leaves between the avocado tree and the althea bush.  

Another mystery solved and the garden is in full flour!

About ten years ago, a lady down the road from me gave me a cutting from a bush in her yard. Miss Twin (yes, there were two of them and yes, they were twins..Vera and Eura..both "Miss Twin" to everyone that knew them!) did not know the name of the bush. She just always called it her "Fake Orange Tree". The bush did not resemble any citrus tree at all, it just made orange flowers that started as a round, orange-colored bud about the size of a marble and produced a small. orange fruit. There was never any thought to the idea that the fruit was edible..it was just there. I was delighted to get the cuttings and promptly went about searching for the identity of the bush. "Fake Orange Tree" just was not going to cut it with me! I searched high and low..asked everyone I knew..pored over piles of books..all to no avail. "Fake Orange Tree" began to sound like a pretty great name.

Then! Then today, I find the identity of the bush quite by happenstance. I was actually looking up how to make Hydrangeas flourish here in the Deep South where usually the heat and dry summers get the best of them. There on my computer screen pops up the ruffled orange flower of my "Fake Orange Tree"! I could not believe my eyes! Oh, Happy Day! It turns out that my bush is none other than a Pomegranate Tree! Whoa!!!! A Pomegranate Tree? Now that is curious! I would have never guessed even though now that I think about it, the little fruits do look like a small pomegranate. Now this is exciting to me..probably not to anyone else..but to me it is! I only wish that Miss Twin was still alive so I could tell her. We could sit at her kitchen table, drink a cup of coffee and discuss whether we should try to eat one of the fruits. Oh, how I miss her! A Pomegranate Tree...hmmmmm? Oh, and I did find out some great info on the Hydrangea Bush!

About the rest of the title of this post...that is not a misspelling or a typographical error. The garden is in full flour! Really! I read somewhere that ordinary, all-purpose flour will drive grasshoppers out of the garden. Those pesky Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers are back and they are back with a vengeance! We had no late freezes to kill the little suckers so now they are eating everything in sight. Nothing is safe from their chomping! Again, I researched. Without dumping a bunch of chemicals around on my property, I was pretty much doomed to letting the dirty, little rascals devour my entire garden. Then, a suggestion of dusting the plants with a thing coat of flour. It seems that it does not act immediately but rather as they continue to eat the now flour-coated plant, their mouths gets completely gummed. They cannot rid themselves of the paste and therefore cannot eat. Then they die. Death by flour! I decided that it was worth a shot. Son and I went out early this morning with our sifters and declared warfare on the munching monsters! We sifted flour on the Day Lilies, squash, pumpkins and petunias. We sifted flour on the cabbages, gloriosas, irises and cucumbers. We sifted flour on the water hyssop, beans,

tomatoes and peppers. Fifteen pounds of flour in the garden! It looks much like it snowed! The north wind carried the flour everywhere creating a fine dusting on all of the plants. Now, to wait..and hopefully find dead grasshoppers in a few days! So you see..the garden really is in "full flour"!