Around the Neighbourhood

I'm always on the lookout for things of interest and pictures worth taking, but sometimes these leave me with a scattering of pictures from my various rides.  So here are a few of the things I've found of interest over the past few weeks.

Right next door our neighbour has one of the amazing 'dinner plate' Hibiscus, a bright pink one, so known because the blooms are the size of (small) dinner plates!

They also have this beautiful blue Rose of Sharon that's been in bloom for several weeks.

Elsewhere the most common brightly coloured end-of-summer flowers I see are these Brown-eyed Susans.  I could probably list a dozen places I've seen them blooming.

But the most interesting flower I've seen grows outside this house, which is of interest in it's own right, with that curved porch and the remarkable stone wall.

And this is the plant, a Cup Plant.  Here growing 8 feet tall, it's a native perennial widely distributed over eastern North America, and typical of the eastern prairie.

It's bright yellow flowers go on blooming well into fall.

It gets it's name from the tiny cup formed where the opposite leaves meet at the stem and overlap slightly, holding a drop of three of water or dew, an adaptation that serves an eastern prairie plant well.

Around a corner or two from the Cup Plant is this interesting combination of colours, pink Echinacea, yellow Day Lilies, and light blue Russian Sage.  An unusual grouping, but one I find very attractive.

Part 2 tomorrow.