Flower Friday - Mimosa

Mimosa

This week's featured flowers are from one of our flowering trees - Mimosa!  This fast-growing deciduous tree has lovely petal-less, pink flowers that bloom all summer long.  The flowers have a distinctive sweet fragrance.  The feather-like bipinnate leaves are silvery green on top and bright green underneath.  They fold inward at night and remain open during daylight hours.  Mimosas have smooth greyish bark, an airy branching habit, and grow to around 30 feet tall.   They bloom well in full sun, and butterflies and birds seem to enjoy the soft pink flowers.  This tree is very easy to grow.  In fact, while it is not considered an invasive species where we live, it is apparently considered invasive in warmer regions.  If you would like to learn more about mimosa trees (also known as Silk trees or Persian Silk trees), check out Dave's Garden's Mimosa tree page, Garden Guides' Mimosa tree page, or Wikipedia's Mimosa tree page.

 

A few book and blogosphere updates:

1.  Novel Novice is hosting a steampunk writing contest in honor of Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel.  Five winners will receive finished, hardcover copies of Clockwork Angel as well as a Clockwork Angel journal and poster.  Very cool!  There are two ways to enter - by submitting a short story with steampunk elements or by submitting a description of your  idea for a steampunk-era device.  The contest ends 8/31, and you can learn more about it here.

2.  If you want to read Alex Flinn's Beastly before the movie adaptation hits theaters next March, you can read the first eleven chapters online for free courtesy of HarperTEEN's awesome Browse Inside feature.  It can be found here.

Looking for more fun reading online?  Amazon's 'Look Inside' feature will now allow you to read the first forty-eight pages of Lisa Desrochers' Personal Demons.  You can check that out here.

3.  The Mundie Moms will be chatting with Michelle Zink, the author of Prophecy of the Sisters and Guardian of the Gate, at 8 pm CST on Thursday (8/19).  You can stop by and join that chat by visiting the Mundie Moms' blog.

Flower Friday - Yarrow

Yarrow (Achillea) - "Terra Cotta"

This week's featured flower is - Yarrow!  This drought-tolerant perennial has feathery, fern-like foliage and is available in a wide variety of colors.  Our "Terra Cotta" yarrow is covered with crowns of yellow & orange flowers from June through August.  The flowers retain their color when dried, and this plant can be heavily chopped back mid-summer to encourage it to continue blooming into the fall.  To learn more about Yarrow, check out GardenGuide's "How to Grow Yarrow" video or see Yarrow in a variety of colors on Dave's Gardens' Yarrow pages.

A few book and blogosphere updates:

An image of Clary and Jace by Nicole Virella (for the upcoming City of Bones graphic novel)

1.   Cassandra Clare shared some new images from the upcoming City of Bones graphic novel which will be published by Th3rd World Comics.  You can see the images and read Cassandra Clare's full post here and check out more of artist Nicole Virella's work on her blog.

2.  Claudia Gray is giving away an ARC of Lisa Desrochers's Personal Demons as well as copies of Cat Adams' Blood Song and Siren Song.  You can read more about that contest here (ends 7/27).  Lisa Derochers is also hosting her own ARC contest here (ends 7/30).  And forty ARCs of Personal Demons will be given away through Goodreads.  You can check that out here (ends 8/12).

3.  Stephanie Burgis's first Kat Stephenson novel (entitled A Most Improper Magick in the UK) has a new US title, a new US release date, and an awesome new US cover.  Kat, Incorrigible is now scheduled for publication on April 5, 2011.  The second book will now be called Kat, Incorrigible: A Tangle of Magics.  French artist Annette Marnat's cover illustration is just way too adorable, so I'm also going to post the full jacket illustration below.  Click here to read Stephanie Burgis's full announcement regarding the new US cover, release date, and title.  To see more of Annette Marnat's artwork, click here.  You can also read the first chapter of Kat, Incorrigible here.