I’m taking it easy on day five of Cathy’s Week of Flowers celebration. I guess I don’t party like I used to. Today with a single photo I’m celebrating the heat of late July and the entire month of August, and the hot red flowers of Lobelia cardinalis. This moisture loving North American native plant finally settled in just off the back porch in a somewhat shaded and often damp corner of the house. While the cardinal flowers are in bloom, hummingbirds run a near constant turf war with guards and hit and runs and and the constant chatter of chases and aerial combat. A gardener who sits nearby to enjoy the shelter and shade is guaranteed a face-to-face barrage of insults from some tiny hovering pint-sized fighter pilot. Hummingbirds seem so tiny and cute, but in reality they’re little flying honey badgers.
Cardinal flower filling the end of the shade garden.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend, it’s a beautifully sunny morning here and although it’s also on the cold side, the rest of the week looks tolerable… and by tolerable I mean good shipping weather for a little box of succulents…
Merry Christmas to me!
sorta like suburbia 
Getting a stand of Cardinal Flower like yours is no easy thing. You should be very pleased with your accomplishment.
I love them. Some day they’ll fade away when the site changes, but for now I won’t touch a thing… which is kind of how they came about in the first place.
Beautiful, my mother tried to grow those on a creek bank (in North America) for years to no avail.
They’re particular I think. I tried and failed in a few other parts of the garden, they like the shade of trees but not the smothering autumn leaves or invasive roots.
I bet your mother was able to make plenty of other things happy on that creek bank!
The creek bank was populated with River Birches..
Oh, what a gorgeous spot! I would never want to leave it. So true about the hummingbirds…I stopped putting out my hummingbird feeder…it was getting dangerous out there. They still stop by for the flowers, but it’s less of a dog fight without the feeder!
They’re crazy little birds. It must come of being raised as a sword-swallower from birth!
That does look like a very inviting spot to sit and watch the flowers.
On a hot day I’ll take any shady spot, and this one eve has a nice moss patch to cool the eyes on 😉
LOL! : “little flying honey badgers” is an apt description for hummers. Thanks for the belly laugh. Enjoy your ‘quiet’ day, Frank!
haha, for a while I was obsessed with honey badgers but I think I prefer the hummingbird form when it comes to wildlife in the garden.
The Lobelias are wonderful Frank. I can only imagine what the hummingbirds are like – I saw a documentary once where you could see them fighting in the air and I was shocked at how aggressive they are. Succulents for Christmas is novel, but why not! Hope they arrive safely. 😃 And thanks for joining in again! 👍
Oh my gosh, the succulents arrived yesterday and they’re so cute. I already planted them…. and a mouse already ran off with a few which he sampled and then dropped. Hopefully they survive and hopefully the mouse does not.
😃 Hope the mouse finds something tastier in your neighbour’s garden instead! LOL!
This shot looks so tropical.
Doesn’t it!? The red is so bright and the greens so lush, and the tropical foliage just puts it over the edge. It was nice being able to sit here while the rest of the garden was drying up.