Friday Randomness

A collection of tidbits today, starting with my Musa basjoo hardy bananas. This is what they looked like a few days ago:

I had just removed the plastic cover that was keeping the leaves dry and the color and texture of the dead pseudostem tops caught my eye.

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Want to see what they look like today?

Yep, it's the same photo because I have not yet been able to remove the fence and move all of the leaves. It's a huge amount of leaves and will be much work. The only disadvantage of keeping all of these leaves around (in my planting beds too) is that spring cleanup is a lot more work. It's not work, it's gardening, right?



This has been a good spring for crocus so far in my garden:

I suppose that's because the clumps are starting to reach a decent size, pushing up enough blooms to make a difference. Daffodils are not far behind.



I've been posting a lot about bamboo recently, mainly because it's so visible at this time of the year. You know who has a great bamboo collection?

The St. Louis Zoo does!

They have at least six different types growing in two main areas: around the gorilla house, and in the River's Edge area.



The zoo also has a nice butterfly house (they call it the "butterfly wing" of the Insectarium) where dozens of small tropical beauties flit around. This large one was resting in easy phone camera reach:

Such a nice taste of summer! Does anybody know what type of butterfly this is?



So many pretty but unidentified butterflies -- one other unidentified but pretty thing I saw there:

Does anybody know what this is? So blue, so wonderful! Is it a Chamaecyparis?


I hope you get a lot done in the garden this weekend!

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