Sunday, July 27, 2008

For Hummingbirds Only

There's nothing quite like a red trumpet vine. This one given to me by Elle. We have had to move it several times and it resented it. It is a late bloomer and shows no leaf growth in the spring. I used to look for a replacement when I did my spring plant buying. I soon learned that the nurseries had dead sticks too, so I would go back home and wait for my dead stick to come to life. It always did, but up until last year we had only leaves. Finally a few flowers appeared . This year it is flowering like crazy. The flowers bloom for a short time and then drop off to the ground. I'm thinking about cutting it back. Did you ever hear of a trumpet vine standard? It's planted next to a fence post and has reached the top.

Here is a hummingbird's eye view of a trumpet vine flower. As far as I know only a humming bird can reach the nectar in these deep trumpets. The bloom is actually larger than the bird. The birds don't seem to mind, they fly right up there like you would drive into your garage and stick their extremely long tongue into the long tubular flower.

There was quite a thunder and lightening show last night complete with heavy rain and a power outage. I'm not fond of this extreme weather but some of the plants are loving the heat and water.

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