A close view of one of my marigolds. I save the flowers from each year and just scatter them in the late spring. Most come along with large flowers.

Helianthus Microcephalus, a native sunflower. Very bushy yet it gets to be almost 6 feet tall. This flower is fully developed and is less than three inches across. The butterflies and bees love it. I blooms for about 8 weeks.

Gaillarida - Arizona Sun. A common name is blanket flower. Don't consider growing this flower unless you want lots of self-sown flowers.

What I noticed with this photo is that many of the petals appear to be growing in trios.

Eryngium yuccifolium (rattlesnake master) is a native tall prairie plant. The leaves do appear to be yucca-like and my flowers are more than 5 feet tall. This is a close view of the flower. Notice the symmetry.

As usual, your pictures are outstanding and make a lowly Marigold shine like the latest star of the Chelsea Flowershow. I've never seen a Rattlesnake Master. Thanks for the picture. Now if I would know where to find one, it has a neat flower.

From this afternoon...Queen Annes' Lace in the field behind my house.

Black-eyed Susan, in my neighbor Susan's yard.

Back in the field again - red clover.

Verbena in a porch box. If the sun shines a lot, it won't do anything. We have had three days of clouds - Yay!

Second bloom of the summer for the yarrow. They are always significantly smaller.

Another from Susan's yard. Butterfly bush. I tried three times to get them to grow in my yard - darn her!

Jim, your flower pictures are lovely, and your commentary very helpful and educational to one who is not a 'true' gardener. For instance, I've been religiously deadheading my marigolds and throwing them away. You're saying I should save the flowers and scatter them--broken apart, maybe?--next Spring?

The Butterfly bush flower is very impressive, but they all are, even the 'lowly' Queen Anne' Lace looks good enough for a bridal bouquet.

Thanks so much for sharing your flowers and pictures.

Jim, beautiful pics of beautiful flowers.
Thanks

Marigolds - I deadhead during the active growing season. Once a frost has pretty much made things look ugly, I pull the plants and and lay them in the garage. Sometime in the winter, when I am bored, I pull apart all the flowers and toss the seeds that look ugly. The rest go in a bag and I wait.

I scatter the seeds and then move my foot through them to possibly get a bit of dirt on them. You could plant them in cells with just a light covering of soil/potting mix. I figure that I get about 30% germination. Once they get started decently, then you can move them to where you want them. However, that transplanting should be done late in the day or when shade will be there for several hours. Water liberally the first couple of days, then they will make it.

I am somewhat lazy so I don't do the same thing with the cone flower, liatris, etc. I generally cut the stems and then throw them violently on the ground where I want them to germinate. It's not neat rows, but it will happen. You can do the same with dill and cilantro.

Want to feel creative? Cut some Queen Anne's Lace early in the day, place it in water in a shading spot. Once you have decided that it won't die within 5 hours, then you spray paint the flower head. Get several, all the same color or a wide assortment of colors. You will have a simple centerpiece for outdoor dining in the summer.

Jim

Jim, thanks for the tips; guess I'm safe to continue deadheading for a while longer. I'm going to copy your information, so I can access it, later.

We knew that one year we would have to move just before Christmas, live in temperary housing for about a month and taking along Christmas ornaments in the personal luggage was impossible. So during the summer we dried and pressed Queen Ann' Lace, we had about 50 of them, they did not take any room at all. We spraypainted them, once arrived, silver, gold and white and had a very pretty tree.

anneliese, I luv your story. Back in Norway, we used to pick and dry cranberries for decorations.

I sat and waited. And waited some more. But I never saw the wasp that dug this hole. I am always amazed by what they do and where they do it. I'll wait some more another day.

Speaking of digging...a couple of weeks ago, I saw this little pile. It was closed. However, about 18 inches away was another one with a hole in it. I did some research and decided that this was a creation of a terrestrial crayfish. Now, the second mount has been closed up (from the inside) and the old one has a new hole. I will probably never see this creature, as my research shows that it does its thing only at night.

terrestrial crayfish. , Eeeeek. I would call dh to get it out of my yard.

This is the closed up one.

These are in a field behind the house that gets flooded whenever we have more than a half inch of rain. That has happened many times in June and July. Maybe that I why I have never seen these before.