05 July 2015

Well that was fun

Of course the hot weather might not be over for good, but there has definitely been a change. Today is the first time in a while that we've seen a low temperature below 20ºC. Yesterday, and overnight, we got some thunder and some rain, and yesterday's high temperature didn't even hit 30ºC. It was fun while it lasted.


We are used to seeing a lot of blue wild chicory flowers all around the vineyard at this time of year. They're also called cornflowers in some places and by some people. Wild chicory is a European plant that has become naturalized in large parts of the U.S.


It's hard to resist taking photos of the bright blue chicory flowers. There have been more of them than usual this year, probably because of the hot dry weather we've had for a few weeks.

 

There are fewer flowers now, since the village sent out a man on a tractor hauling a mower to cut down all the tall plants along the gravel road through the vineyard a couple of days ago. Last weekend, Walt came back from his walk with the dog and reported he had seen white cornflowers growing out at the very end of the gravel road.


The next day, I walked out there and looked for them. I'd only ever seen blue flowers before, but I just read in the Wikipedia article about chicory that the plant can have not only blue or white but also pink blooms.The plants with white chicory blossoms are gone now — mowed down.

12 comments:

  1. In the Sonora Desert of Southern California, where I used to spend winters, there is a native white wild chicory Rafinesquia neomexicana. In that part of the US, I have never seen a blue chicory, a native to the Old World, which is all over the place in the East.

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  2. I love to see the blue of chicory along the roadsides. It's in bloom now.

    But I've never seen chicory looking fabulous before this. Amazing closeups, Ken.

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    1. Thanks, Carolyn. I'm enjoying my two new cameras...

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  3. Lovely pix, Ken....
    the pure blue of wild Chicory is one of my favourite colours...
    we have the wild here, but...
    this last year one or two of our "tame" chicories seeded...
    so I've mowed around them.
    They have a distinct magenta tinge to the blue... not as clean a blue as these....
    but still lovely for the first half of the day.

    Those white ones are something different, too.
    Fortunately, chicory being a perennial, it will be back next year.
    Tim

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  4. Two new cameras? Do yo still have the Canon? The first and forth photos are my favs.

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    1. This fourth photo, Evelyn, makes me think of a Navajo sand painting, Sunface, that I bought at the Cameron Trading Post in Arizona almost thirty years ago. It is my favorite, too.

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    2. pardon my typo for foUrth. I bet I'd like your sand painting, chm!

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  5. Oh, I didn't know that chicory was the same thing as cornflower :) I think I've only actually heard of cornflower from the Crayola crayon color :)

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    1. Hi Judy,
      It seems that at least two different flowers are callled cornflower, wild chicory and centaurea [bleuet en français].

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  6. The photos of the wild chicory are AMAZINGLY beautiful. Thanks!

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