a panorama image of gasworks park, looking south over south lake union. the day is sunny, the lake is calm, and the path lays at your feet

Musings and Mumblings

When Did Flowers Get So Big???

by: Rey, Wed, Jul 09, 2025

neighborhood, gardening, flowers

I run errands over lunch, sometimes, it's a luxury of working from home and living in a wonderfully walkable neighborhood. Todays errand was getting kitty food, lest the gremlins rebel and take over the running of the house. They have Opinions about their food, so my head was very focused on whether it was time to try a different flavor, when I walked past the local p-patch.

a small rosebush with seven small canes is growing small healthy green leaves out of the top of each one. the bottoms are still bare of anything but thorns. The plant is in an octogonal wood pot, sitting on a field of mulch, with a tree and some other flowers behind it.
My little baby rose bush is putting out leaves!!

(Before I left, I snapped a picture of my little rose that was planted last month and is just putting out it's first leaves with me, so you all get to see it, too, even though, unlike almost everything else, it's just a short little friend.)

A P-Patch, for those who may not be familiar, is a plot of land in a neighborhood, which is subdivided such that people can garden in a little square of ground, for a nominal fee. The one in my neighborhood is a delightful combination of vegetables, food, and flowers, and it was in Fine Form, today.

multiple tall plants grow along a black metal fence. this one reaches to the top of the fence, and has pendulous white flowers with very narrow necks a couple inches long and then a small flare at the end.
I have no idea what this plant is, but its over 5' tall and full of drooping white trumpet-shaped flowers.

This is the plant that initially caught my attention, mostly because I have no idea what it is. The flowers remind me of jasmine, but that's not what this is, there was no smell. The leaves were all low, but the spikes were taller than me - not that that's terribly difficult!

On my way home, I stopped to snap s'more pictures, and saw another woman doing the same thing, amusingly enough.

a small rosebush with seven small canes is growing small healthy green leaves out of the top of each one. the bottoms are still bare of anything but thorns. The plant is in an octogonal wood pot, sitting on a field of mulch, with a tree and some other flowers behind it.
My little baby rose bush is putting out leaves!!
![Also no id, but the flowers were gorgeous!](/img//pPatch/gothFlower.jpg)

Next to the not-a-jasmine, was this delightful goth plant with bloom spikes somewhere in the vicinity of six feet tall. This particular bloom was right at eye level, just daring me to photograph it.

a closeup of the bloom of a bright yellow sunflower, with a ton of bright yellow petals, ringing a black center where seeds are beginning to develop. It's surrounded by large green leaves.
A classic sunflower.
a smaller sunflower bloom. Instead of being fully yellow, the petals are a mauve-purple on their inner half and then switch to yellow along the outside.
I didn't know sunflowers came with purple middles!

When praising the tall flowers, you cannot forget to include the sunflowers, and they were showing off. the multi-colored one was down low, like four feet, but the yellow guy towered. I had to reach up to get that photo, and there was an even bigger one next to it, probably a solid seven feet tall! This damn p-patch is going to give me a complex!

low patch of blue flowers with purple centers. their petals have a spokey effect, and their leaves are narrow and long, like grass blades.
short, but prolific with lovely blue spikey flowers.

And finally, the short king, the sweet pea and the bachelor's button. Hello pretties! there were also some standard white daisies, sweet pea, and an apple espalier.

Sometimes, walking around the neighborhood can be so pretty!