After our share of thistle hearts (in case you didn’t already know, artichokes are in the thistle family), I let the last few buds go to flower.
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This was not the only bee allowed a last fling before I cut the flowers.
If you get a chance to feel them, fresh artichoke flower tops are very soft.
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A dried artichoke flower from last year is on the left and a fresh cut flower on the right. Not only the color of the new flower base (it is green), but its shape reveal the difference in age of the two. As water evaporates, the bud will shrink and lose weight quite a bit.
These flowers are standing in a Goddess Vase that I made.
I love to play/work in the mud – clay and flowers both live in dirt.
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One of the coolest things about artichokes, is that the mother plant that yielded delicious eating chokes and pretty flowers for drying, makes baby plants before it dies.
There are two artichoke plants coming from the ground, in the photo above. On the left side is new growth with the mother plant’s leaves turning yellow on the right side.
susansflowers 