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securetheshire.com
Shire resident
@securetheshire.com
8.4K followers 13K following 230 posts
Travel from your couch to your backyard.
There’s a world of relationships between every living thing right there for you to explore.
Learn and protect.

securetheshire.com
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Had a great Halloween this year. Took my nieces around and made some cool pumpkins. Carving pumpkins come from the Irish who upon finding pumpkins in the new world found them much easier to carve than potatoes.
A carved pumpkin of a ghost coming out of a pumpkins. A witch riding a broom carved pumpkin on steps. A skeleton pirate head carved in a pumpkin A witches face carved in a pumpkin.
November 3, 2025 at 11:44 AM
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Chrysanthemums can be made perennials in zones like 6a. Just heap and bunch of straw or leaves over the dead mum to insulate from cold. They’ll come up next year and be massive.

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A bunch of chrysanthemum (mums) flowers with soft pink tips that slide to white then yellow from outer edge to the center.
November 1, 2025 at 11:22 AM
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A lot of people’s worries can be mended by realizing what is existentially true. #poem #poetry
A FRANK FRIEND Your body, your mind, what are they? Eaten food grows your behind, child’s play. Grown from gathered life you are Cut your hand off and stick it in a jar. You’re in two! You're here and trapped afar? Surely not! Hear this and know it true. What you own cannot be you Your hand obeys your will Is it you? Are you eager to die on this hill? Gathered from outside, it's not you still. Writing with clouds, a plane prints out thoughts. You’re the same when thinking about was’s and oughts. A plane could write the word ‘sky’ in effort of wit But the word would not be the true blue, bit would not be it. Is a blank canvas a problem? I’m glad space is empty, does that larn em? What tells the bees to build a hive? What beats your heart keeping you alive? It cannot be named, labels offend it chiefly Words don’t work even when used briefly Searching inward always helps, no matter how measly. What is this life sustaining thing that supports even a sea flea? Look inside and what do you find? What's beneath the raging waves of your mind? Everything you think of is a copy rearranged. Without memory are you gone? A husk deranged? A blue sky, a pretty day, this is your mind defanged. If we miss the sky for the cloud we’d be sorry for certain More happens under the ocean than on the surface. Identity is a crutch Something to lean on when you’ve forgotten. You’re like this moment, eternal, never rotten. Worries of the past and future happen now Engage in life while sap is in the bough. Break your mask and be in the play somehow Cast off, blindly leap, in love please fall. Explore the world, nothing sacred to keep, love all. By: Nathan Traini
October 20, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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A perennial flower the Blue wood aster and an eastern bumblebee. They say this plant is only supposed to grow to 4 feet. It was 7 feet tall before it bowed under the weight of its bloom.

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I’m multitude of baby blue flowers that two bumblebees are feeding from. The heart leaf Astor or the blue wood. Aster is native to the central and eastern parts of North America.
September 30, 2025 at 1:37 PM
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These guys flower in the hundreds.

Doellingeria umbellata: It is native to the eastern and north-central United States (from Nebraska and the Dakotas east to Maine and South to Mississippi, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
8 fully in frame tiny white petal’d flowers with yellow centers. Doellingeria umbellata is a perennial up to 200 cm (80 inches) tall, spreading by means of underground rhizomes. It can sometimes produce as many as 300 small flower heads, each with as many as 16 white ray florets and 50 yellow disc florets.
September 11, 2025 at 10:01 PM
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Zinnia elegans (syn. Zinnia violacea) known as youth-and-age, common zinnia or elegant zinnia, is an annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae.

It is native to Mexico but grown as an ornamental in many places.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
A beautiful purple flower with yellow flowers in the center. Naturalised in several places, including scattered locations in South and Central America, the West Indies, the United States, Australia, and Italy.
August 20, 2025 at 2:33 PM
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Cosmos bipinnatus, commonly called the garden cosmos, Mexican aster or cosmea, is a medium-sized flowering herbaceous plant in the daisy family Asteraceae, native to the Americas.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
Here we have the Mexican daisy just unfurling to bloom. Its pink speckled white flowers and hardy yellow center is striking. This plant is native to Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica. It is used as an ornamental plant in many countries, but it is an invasive plant in many areas of the world. It has naturalized in scattered locations across North America, South America, the West Indies, Italy, Australia, and Asia, where it is a garden escape and in some habitats becoming a weed.
August 13, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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Coreopsis grandiflora is a North American species of perennial plant in the family Asteraceae. The common name is large-flowered tickseed.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
Tickseed flower with bright yellow tips and red center. It is found in eastern Canada (Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick) and much of the United States, especially the south-central part of the country (Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc.)
July 31, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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Stylophorum diphyllum, commonly called the celandine poppy or wood poppy. It is native to North America, where it is found in the eastern United States and Ontario.
#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
Here is a bright yellow wood poppy flower amongst its green foliage. Its typical natural habitat is moist forests over calcareous rock, particularly in ravines.
July 30, 2025 at 1:51 PM
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Mandevilla sanderi, the Brazilian jasmine, is a vine belonging to the genus Mandevilla.

It is a rapidly growing, creeping, perennial plant, pruning shoots about 60 cm per year.
#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
A red five petaled flower with a yellow center. species is endemic to the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.🇧🇷
July 27, 2025 at 3:44 PM
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Coreopsis grandiflora is a North American species of perennial plant in the family Asteraceae. The common name is large-flowered tickseed.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
This 8 petaled flower is bright yellow with a deep red ring around the stamens. The center it yellow. This plant is native to the US and Canada and has been cultivated in china and naturalized there.
July 16, 2025 at 11:08 AM
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Monarda fistulosa, the wild bergamot or bee balm, is a wildflower in the mint family Lamiaceae, widespread and abundant as a native plant in much of North America.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
Day 1 of the first signs of flowering. Tiny tubes of light purple erupt. The leaves from this plant have been used as a medicinal tea. Day 2 those tiny tubes have grown a few more millimeters. This plant is not related to the bergamot fruit. Day 3 and those tiny tubes explode with pollen rich goodness. A bubble member goes to town and reminds us why it’s called bee balm. Thymol is an antiseptic in mouthwash and this plant is the natural source.
July 12, 2025 at 11:42 AM
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Hibiscus moscheutos, the rose mallow or swamp rose-mallow is native east of Texas and north to southern Ontario. It likes moist soils and partial sun.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
This rose mallow is beautifully pink, with a maroon center. This plant is edible and has been used medicinally for a variety of ailments.
July 7, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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Penstemon barbatus- known by the common names golden-beard penstemon, and beardlip penstemon, is a flowering plant native to the western United States.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
Penstemons have this tubular structure that bees and hummingbirds love. This version is associated with piñon–juniper woodlands, ponderosa pine forests and Douglas-fir forests in the southern parts of their ranges, and with Gambel oak, usually at elevations of 1,200 to 3,000 meters (3,900 to 9,800 ft), but occasionally as high as 3,400 meters (11,200 ft).
July 4, 2025 at 10:26 AM
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The common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is a species of large annual forb of the daisy family Asteraceae.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
Here is a sunflower with mostly red with yellow tipped petals. Native to the western US and Mexico sunflowers have many uses both by wildlife and humans. This wild version boasts multiple blooms on one stalk instead of the single head domesticated species.
July 2, 2025 at 12:07 PM
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Hemerocallis flava, known as lemon daylily, lemon lily, yellow daylily, and other names is a plant native to China, northeastern Italy, and Slovenia.

#gardening #nativeplants
This showy orange 6 petal’d flower was one of the first daylily’s used for breeding new cultivars.
June 28, 2025 at 12:51 PM
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Asclepias tuberosa, commonly known as butterfly weed, is a species of milkweed native to eastern and southwestern North America.

It is commonly known as butterfly weed.
🌱🌎 #gardening #nativeplants
20 some orange flowers bunched together typical of butterfly milkweed. To have beautiful surroundings you must do the right things.
June 25, 2025 at 1:31 PM
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Iris versicolor L., Northern Blue Flag, or Harlequin Blueflag is native to the lower 48 states and appreciates wetlands.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
Here you see a blue flag iris flower that’s with its yellow center and blueish purple flowers. It’s been beaten up by the constant downpours every week in western Pa.
June 17, 2025 at 12:24 PM
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Geranium wallichianum or Buxton’s Blue is native to the Himalayas.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌏
Two Five petaled blueish purple germanium flowers with their alien-like reproductive organs.
June 10, 2025 at 11:38 AM
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Sisyrinchium angustifolium-

Blue-eyed Grass is a Pa native, enjoys moist/average soil and part sun.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
Blue eyed grass has 6 petal flowers light blue with a bright yellow center.
June 7, 2025 at 1:49 PM
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Sundrop or Oenothera fruticosa is apart of the Evening Primrose Family, Onagraceae. Loves full sun and can tolerate drought.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌱🌎
A sundrop flower with its four hand-fan-like bright yellow petals and striking clawish reproductive organs. Native to North America this plant is host to many butterfly and moth species.
June 4, 2025 at 1:25 PM
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Phragmipedium besseae is a species of orchid in the genus Phragmipedium.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌎🌱
A pink orchid with three large pink petals and and dark pink slipper with a yellow inside. It is a terrestrial plant native to the wet montane forests on the eastern slope of the Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
June 3, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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Rhododendron kiusianum, the Kyushu azalea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to Kyushu, Japan

#gardening #nativeplants 🌏🌱
Reddish pink flowers abound on the 3 foot bush, as an ornamental bush not much information is available about any uses. It is the official flower of Unzen, Nagasaki, and of Kagoshima Prefecture.
June 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
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Penstemon digitalis or Foxglove Beardtongue is native to the central US and has been naturalized across the eastern US.

#gardening #nativeplants 🌏🌱
Purple tubular flowers that little bees crawl in and fall asleep.
May 31, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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Philadelphia fleabane is common in most eastern states and Canada. Looked at as a weed, I appreciate its tiny flowers.

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A white pedal flower with a yellow center next to a pink flower about to bloom from the same plant.
May 29, 2025 at 12:21 PM