Blazing Star

The Blazing Star is getting ready to open bloom.  There are about a hundred of these spikes, should be pretty when fully open.

Remember the mystery plants I had in April, wellllllllllllllllll...................

Turns out, they were the Cornflowers.  I forgot that I had a few of them in the garden last year.  They are quite tall and pretty.  It is funny how they seeded in a perfect arch in only one spot in the garden.  In the bottom photo, that is my Blazing Stars growing.  They will be tall like the Cornflowers when mature.

Hollyhocks in bloom

The top phots not only shows the Hollyhock in good bloom, but you can see my white delphinium.  You can see the purple delphinium leaning from all our rain lately.  It got really, really tall.  Did not expect the height from this plant for this year!  I see that I have one Hollyhock plant that is a "single bloom" plant, all the others are what is called "doubles". The Hollyhock are in colors of white, red and pink.

The middle photo shows the pink Hollyhocks and you can see some of my Blazing Star in bloom.

The bottom photo shows the pink single flower Hollyhock.  If you click on the photo, then click on it again, you can get a good close up picture and see all the details of the flowers.

This is the Blazing Star, Liatris in Diane's garden.  The flower spike starts to open from the TOP down.  As you can see, the bees like this spike. 

This is really a pretty plant to have in the garden.

Blazing Star in bloom!

This is the Blazing Star, a/k/a Liatris growing in Diane's garden.  This flower has the unique attritube of opening the flowers from the TOP down the spike.  It is the reverse of most other spike type flowers. The top picture is a picture of my garden show the 50 bulbs I planted.  I can't wait for my garden ones to bloom, it is going to be quite the corner show.

Blazing Star, Liatris spike

This is a picture of Diane's Blazing Star sending up its' tall flower spike.  This spike will start to open from the top down, it will be purple.  Quite an unusual looking plant.

Blazing Star

OK, this is a new picture of a group of flowers I planted this year.  At Lowe's I got this package of bulbs of Blazing Star, Liatris spicata.  I've wanted this plant every year, but could not find it.  Anyhow, there it was on the shelf in bulb form, all neating packed in a package.  I took it home, waited a couple of weeks, then decided to plant the bulbs.  I was not aware that there were 50 bulbs in the package.  I planted all 50 of them, and it looks like at least 30 of them are coming up in this picture.  I found this about the Blazing Star on the internet:

The Cherokee used the bulb-like root in a preparation to treat intestinal gas, increase urination and to relieve backache. Practitioners of folk medicine used it to treat sore throats, kidney stones and even gonorrhea. It's use has been discouraged because if not prepared correctly ingesting the root can cause severe gastrointestinal upset and burning.  This flower sends up tall purple spikes for flowers.  You can see the spikes starting to form in both of these pictures.  The one at the top is a picture taken from ground level, the bottom pictures is taken from a standing position over the plants.