WILDFLOWER TIME AGAIN!

Get ready!  This Sunday, May 20, it is time once again for the Mount Pisgah Wildflower Festival.  I'll be out there with my booth, selling prints, cards, and stickers of my artwork, and basking in the glory of spring.  I can't say enough about the magnificent and always interesting display of live wildflowers.  (For some photos of past events, see last year's blog post.)  It's a family friendly event, with nature walks, music, booths selling plants, art, nature books, and things to munch on.  It runs from 10 am - 5 pm.  Check out the link above for the full schedule.

I must say, it is so very beautiful this time of year, with all the flowers a flowering.  At last year's Wildflower Festival, I bought two good sized starts of trollius, aka Globe Flower, which are back in bloom in my back garden now.  What a show they put on!  They have complex and beautiful flower heads on tall stems.  After some experimentation with location, I decided to pop them into a large pot where I could assure they get plenty of water and are in a good spot for showy display, where one can get up close and see those gorgeous details in the flower. 

The trollius are not wildflowers as far as I know, but also looking glorious in my garden this year are the California poppies (escholzia californica), which I learned at the festival last year are considered native up to the Columbia River, and endemic above it.  The ones in the garden I planted from seed some years ago.  These are vigorous re-seeders, to my delight and some people's vexation, I suspect.  They have kept coming up in the narrow mixed border in which I first planted them, but last year decided to come up on the fringes of the main beds, where they look just glorious.  I enjoy them for their bold color, and their draping, informal habit. 

So come on out to the Wildflower Fest, and get some inspiration!  I know I always do.

Trollius aka Globe Flower humming along merrily in my back garden.

Californa poppies in the evening light a few days ago in my back garden.

A little artistic license in for symbolic reasons... I'm not aware of a place where California poppies and fireflies have the same habitat, but the Momma who commissioned this piece had California origins and is now living in firefly country. It is available as a print, individual card, or part of a 3-design card set. I'll have some of each on hand at the Wildflower Festival.