Boy, couldn't resist. I have some of the most beautiful pictures of plants that I had taken in my old life, way back when, back on the southwest coast of B.C. There was some talk about teasel in a thread on camomile and I could not resist but to revisit some pictures that I had of plants that I had propogated -- annuals, biennials and perennials for my bees. Back in those days I had about 10 colonies of bees and I took a part of our land, of five acres, and turned that into a bee plant area. Many, many, many types of plants I grew. I had a small family run nursery, so had the ability and means to grow on many plants, be they cuttings, seed propogation, you get the idea -- and I made bee plants. There was about 1/2 an acre that I had focused on. I had cleared that area of land by hand, along with the help of my mantis rototiller and hard work, and it paid off. I had mountains of bee-friendly plants for my bees. Not that all the plants that I planted were enticing to the bees, but most of them were. They preferred things like borage, phacelia (blue tansy), the worts (figwort, motherwort, etc.), and I was shocked at some of the things that interested bees. There was probably 50 types of plants that I grew, all for those beautiful little honeybees. I have many of these plants sown here, for my honeybees, but only keep one colony so far. This year coming forth, I will work harder with the bees to split the colony so I have more than one.....just a little lazy last year, and let those bees be bees -- they swarmed a couple of times, (my bad, should always practice swarm prevention, but was busy doing other things, smiling). The bees will fare the winter and will begin to raise brood soon, so in April will do splits.....probably not much honey to be gathered this year, as they will be young colonies, but next year -- copious amounts of golden gold....oops, I was ramblin' on about Fuller's Teasel.
I don't really like to post pictures of myself on the internet, but there was such a cool picture of me crouching beside some Fuller's Teasel that I had planted (a bienniel, bothered me it didn't flower the first year, smiling). I am a obsessive person when it comes to weeding. So in spring and summer, most of my life in the garden is on my knees, weeding, seeding, gathering food, as the season progresses. The occasional self-inflicted bee sting allows my knees to still, after all these years, be pain free of some pains that used to ail me. Think ol' arthritis is trying to set in, but I keep it at bay, smiling that big smile.
This picture you see of me in the teasel was taken several years ago, as I said, back on the muddy southwest coast of B.C., back in our old life, my years among the bees and flowers. Enjoy the pictures, teasel is beautiful, but belonging to the thistle family, if let go to seed, could overcome your land. Have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.
This was me during the twilight hours of a day, removing any weeds. Fuller's teasel (well on the wet coastal B.C.) grew to about 3 feet taller than this, this was not yet finished maturing
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Teasel is an amazing plant. Where the leaves join the stalk of the plant they are in a well sort of type of thing, best way to describe this. The water is gathered in this well, and there are insects that love to come and drink from it. Mostly small flies. I have read somewhere that this water has medicinal properties and makes for a lovely facewash to cleanse and purify skin. I was always too busy with other things in my life to bother to gather this water, I just let it be. Interesting how plants save water. I am sure that the plant just wanted to save it for an unrainy (is there such a word, smiling), to nourish its roosts. But...belonging in the thistle family, we all know that there are massively long and strong taproots that go deep into the very earth itself.
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This is what the flower looks like. There was information that bees love teasel. Well, apis mellifera (the honeybee) does not, but holy smokin' smokes!! Those bumblebees (I call them the bombus), of all varieties (think there was like 30 different type of bombus back on the coast) sure did love it......took some very beautiful pictures of the bees on the flowers, if you can call the little pink thingies flowers, smiling that big smile. They LOVED it....not sure how much nectar was in those little flower heads, but they found something surely.
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I thought that the flower heads of the teasel would make a lovely dried flower arrangement. So I picked the flower heads. By the time that all the little pink flowers had fallen off, this is what was left. I took apart one of those flower heads, after they had fully dried, and I think that each dried flower head would have had several thousand seeds within. Something that you would not want to let go to seed (just like thistles), (or burdocks). The seed heads were very dangerous. They had the most horrible sharp thingies on them. I remember once my youngest Grandson took one of the dried flower arrangements and smacked his Cousin (they lived on our property too) and made him cry. Boy did he get in trouble for that. He didn't realize that these seedheads had pointy things that would hurt. Lessons learned that day, smiling that big smile.
When we moved, I burned those seedheads, as I didn't want to take a chance on that millions of seeds somehow being dispersed to mother wind and being an invasive species of plant in our new life, smiling. Could have been a very bad thing should that bunch of seedheads fall out of the moving apparatus we used for moving. (we made like 6 trips of our "stuff" on a big lowbed trailer, unenclosed, so picture what could have happened if these seedheads escaped from any confined containers). Yes, yes, of course I have saved some seed from the Fuller's teasel, but it is somewhere in all my seeds, gonna find the rest of these one day, just gotta do some digging into where some of our stuff from our old life is stored).
anyways, enjoy the pictures, life is made of memories, and oh such love ones have been set to mind.
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I don't really like to post pictures of myself on the internet, but there was such a cool picture of me crouching beside some Fuller's Teasel that I had planted (a bienniel, bothered me it didn't flower the first year, smiling). I am a obsessive person when it comes to weeding. So in spring and summer, most of my life in the garden is on my knees, weeding, seeding, gathering food, as the season progresses. The occasional self-inflicted bee sting allows my knees to still, after all these years, be pain free of some pains that used to ail me. Think ol' arthritis is trying to set in, but I keep it at bay, smiling that big smile.
This picture you see of me in the teasel was taken several years ago, as I said, back on the muddy southwest coast of B.C., back in our old life, my years among the bees and flowers. Enjoy the pictures, teasel is beautiful, but belonging to the thistle family, if let go to seed, could overcome your land. Have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.
This was me during the twilight hours of a day, removing any weeds. Fuller's teasel (well on the wet coastal B.C.) grew to about 3 feet taller than this, this was not yet finished maturing
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Teasel is an amazing plant. Where the leaves join the stalk of the plant they are in a well sort of type of thing, best way to describe this. The water is gathered in this well, and there are insects that love to come and drink from it. Mostly small flies. I have read somewhere that this water has medicinal properties and makes for a lovely facewash to cleanse and purify skin. I was always too busy with other things in my life to bother to gather this water, I just let it be. Interesting how plants save water. I am sure that the plant just wanted to save it for an unrainy (is there such a word, smiling), to nourish its roosts. But...belonging in the thistle family, we all know that there are massively long and strong taproots that go deep into the very earth itself.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
This is what the flower looks like. There was information that bees love teasel. Well, apis mellifera (the honeybee) does not, but holy smokin' smokes!! Those bumblebees (I call them the bombus), of all varieties (think there was like 30 different type of bombus back on the coast) sure did love it......took some very beautiful pictures of the bees on the flowers, if you can call the little pink thingies flowers, smiling that big smile. They LOVED it....not sure how much nectar was in those little flower heads, but they found something surely.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I thought that the flower heads of the teasel would make a lovely dried flower arrangement. So I picked the flower heads. By the time that all the little pink flowers had fallen off, this is what was left. I took apart one of those flower heads, after they had fully dried, and I think that each dried flower head would have had several thousand seeds within. Something that you would not want to let go to seed (just like thistles), (or burdocks). The seed heads were very dangerous. They had the most horrible sharp thingies on them. I remember once my youngest Grandson took one of the dried flower arrangements and smacked his Cousin (they lived on our property too) and made him cry. Boy did he get in trouble for that. He didn't realize that these seedheads had pointy things that would hurt. Lessons learned that day, smiling that big smile.
When we moved, I burned those seedheads, as I didn't want to take a chance on that millions of seeds somehow being dispersed to mother wind and being an invasive species of plant in our new life, smiling. Could have been a very bad thing should that bunch of seedheads fall out of the moving apparatus we used for moving. (we made like 6 trips of our "stuff" on a big lowbed trailer, unenclosed, so picture what could have happened if these seedheads escaped from any confined containers). Yes, yes, of course I have saved some seed from the Fuller's teasel, but it is somewhere in all my seeds, gonna find the rest of these one day, just gotta do some digging into where some of our stuff from our old life is stored).
anyways, enjoy the pictures, life is made of memories, and oh such love ones have been set to mind.
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I like to watch mine come up every year, but they have never acheived anything near the size of the ones you posted.