Water Road Continued….

Due to “technical difficulties” I had to rebuild the last post, and am finally getting the rest of what I found the other day along Water Road. If not for those Azaleas, I may never have known some of these  little treasures existed right under my nose….

During my wandering, I noticed what looked like small Azalea plants closer to the road. Upon closer inspection, the leaves were too small and not just right for Azalea leaves. They almost looked like Blueberry leaves, but I had never seen those here before…. As the photo above shows, they are definitely Wild Blueberries! They may have  been under my nose all the time and I just looked over them, or this may be the first year they have bloomed…. Actually, around here they are called Huckleberries if they are found growing wild. They have smaller berries than the cultivated ones, but the flavor is wonderful. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the blooms are about 1/4 inch long…. very tiny.

I almost missed this, too… A medium growing Solomon’s Seal. I had gotten into the van and saw these out the passenger window, so had to get out again to get photos. These flowers aren’t quite fully open… They aren’t very showy, but the plants usually spread nicely. I have a variegated leaved one in my woodland garden…. I haven’t seen them come up yet… maybe I better take another walk in my own gardens!

There were lots of these Pussy’s Toes blooming on the steepest parts of the roadside. They tend to like more harsh conditions to grow in. The little flowers on these are on 6 inch tall stems, with little fuzzy  gray-green leaves.

It is pretty tricky to get photos of the wild Dogwood flowers. Most of the trees are way down the steep bank on one side of the road, or high on the upper bank of the road. This little tree wasn’t too far up, but the wind was blowing, so many tries were fuzzy. (I love my little digital camera…. just erase the bad ones:) I was trying to get a photo of some of the flowers from their tops, but I’m not tall enough and the wind didn’t want to blow them just when I wanted. This year, they seem to be ahead of most years, just about past peak.

I should have tried to get a finger into this photo to show how tiny the Cinquefoil flower is. The tree leaves may put things into perspective a bit. This flower is no more than about half an inch across. Plants growing in better conditions will have slightly larger flowers, and plant is mostly considered a weed by me. Pretty cute here.

I was trying to show what it is like to walk along this roadway, with the tall trees growing up on a high bank, making them appear even taller. The sky was a perfect blue for the background. This is a beautiful stretch of road, and I feel so lucky to live where I do every time I drive down it.

From the sky, to the ground again….. There are many varieties of ferns growing, and this one is just beginning to unfurl it’s leaves with lots of little Fiddleheads showing.

I discovered these little Anemonella flowers last year, and I think there are even more of them this year. I have a hard time getting the camera to focus on the flowers, not the leaves or background, so this is the best photo I got. Another trip may be needed if the wind ever stops and the temps go up a little.

This is  one of those things that amazes me…. Here is a huge rock, and there are numerous plants growing on the top of it just in whatever has fallen on the top and accumulated there. The photo doesn’t really show well, but the rock sits out by itself. A little rocky soil has tumbled off the bank onto part of it, but most is just old leaves, sticks and whatever else happened to fall there. The poor plants must struggle a lot for moisture in the summer, with such a thin layer of “stuff” to grow in…. Nature at it’s best! This is the last of the photos from that walk along the road…. There will be more as the Mountain Laurel get nearer to blooming.

This beauty is something I have been wanting to acquire for many years… A Single flowered White Peony!  I found this just in bud at a Lowes on the way home from my gram’s. It just started opening these gorgeous Lotus-like flowers. It is in the house right now, due to the gusty winds that kept blowing it over, until I decide it’s place of honor in the front door garden. The single Peony will hold it’s flowers longer because the first rain shower doesn’t fill them with water and flop them to the ground.

Here is a little peek at what is happening with some of the photos I have been taking…. I am making a batch of postcards for an exchange group, and hope to have some extras that  I will be able to list for sale, too.  I also need to get my larger WIP to the machine and start adding some stitching to see where it will end up…. I have an idea what I will do, but many pieces seem to decide they want something different than I first thought…. Time will tell!