What Other Parent Gets To Have Onision Praise Their Garden?

My adorable son (aka "Onision", the YouTube sensation) completely honored my garden by making this comedic film. He's posing as an extremely awkward young man who seems to suffer from stage fright; which makes viewing this flick rather funny. Enjoy.  LOVE YOU ONISION! http://onision.com/. I'm so lucky, and blessed as a parent. It feels just overwhelmingly incredible.

Need Help Identifying This Plant

NEW UPDATE!
Thanks to a highly intelligent friend, Simon Butler, who viewed this posting from a link provided on Facebook, this plant has been identified as "Jewelweed" (Impatiens capensis). According to Simon, it's also referred to as "Touch-me-not."


Here are the two hyperlinks he sent with more information:


http://www.sagebud.com/jewelweed-impatiens-capensis/


http://www.loudounwildlife.org/HHJewelweed.htm

THANK YOU MOST AWESOME SIMON!

POST AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN:
Faeries must have planted this orange-flowering herbacious bush in my yard. (Sure I understand that plants get distributed by many different means, by birds, insects, the wind, dogs that collect seed in their fur). It's just I've just never seen this variety of plant before -- not anywhere in my neighborhood, or from foraging through the woods -- never even saw it from the past and I spent most of my childhood playing in the woods where I grew up four miles from here. I've also never seen this plant inside any nursery.

This is the SECOND year it's appeared in my yard -- suggesting it's perriannual. It died back last winter and now just sprouted up again (late summer).

Any idea what this plant might be called? (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

Beyond asking that you pay close attention to the interesting nodules that formed where the branches connect to the herbacious stem, see next photo, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

No Apples Or Pears This Year

Isn't it amazing how rain can act like a prism and distort the edges of a fragrant rose (making it appear more magical).

We have had such atypical weather all summer this year. More than having week after week of cloudy skies, the nights have been so cold, I've had to wear a sweatshirt and jeans all except for maybe 7 days this summer. Our apple, pear, cherry and peach trees are all barren with no fruit. Compare photos from last year's apple tree to this year's ... (click photos to enlarge them).

apple tree Sept. 2010

same apple tree Sept. 2009

We did not pick one single apple this year (there just weren't any)! Our raspberry bushes also have not produced much fruit. We did pick berries in June, but last year we had so many raspberries we were picking fruit long into October 2009.

Fortunately ... our flowers are still blooming.

Plants reaching up to collect the rain.

I've been creating special features and marked the four corners in our yard.

This is a patio plant that I keep in a pot. When it blooms, the most beautiful rust colored multi-petaled flowers appear.

More potted flowers.

Doug's garden gnomes.

Today was the first time I noticed the Hawthorn berries have appeared.

Only place I can grow carnations is in pots (thank to resident slugs who favor them).

Back yard roses have done remarkably well in spite of the rain. (That is if we can ignore the rust spots on their leaves.)

Shy little gnome playing peak-a-boo.

This is why I love pansies. Look at how they just spill over the edge of my very large flower pots.

The chickens are staying indoors on this rain-filled day.

None of our tomatoes have ripened this year either.

I planted these tomatoes up next to the house where they would get more radiating heat from the house. The tomato plants themselves looked incredibly healthy ... but the tomatoes never matured. I realize I could have cut the branches way back so the plant could send more energy to the fruit. (Learned I was allergic to tomatoes this year so I let the plant do what it wanted.)

Very few blueberries fully ripened at our house this year either.

Here's our pet Oscar, one week after he suffered a stroke. He's still pitching a little to his left but he's so much better now than he was last week when I called the vet and they said it would be most "humane" to put him down. While Oscar was barely moving for a few days, laying on his side, he was willing to eat clover that I carried to him and he still enjoyed being petted so I just watched and observed; made sure he was still drinking water. So now he's back on his feet, hopping to his food, eating the bok choi that I feed him. I didn't want to take a picture of him when he was all gnarled-looking (didn't want to remember him that way if he was going to die) but now that he's nearly recovered I wish I had those "before" photos.

Oscar. Brave stroke survivor.

May he live with us for many more years (he's about four years old now).

After Weeks Of Rain: Evil Demons Come Out!