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Guess where I've been?
I changed the planters going up my front steps again.
I had yellow Snapdragons and blue Petunias and I needed something else.
I found these beautiful Dahlias at the nursery and thought they would work just fine.
I used white Dahlias in two of the pots.
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Annie from “The Transplantable Rose” and Kate from “Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life” suggested that the mystery flower was campanula latifolia. They were right about it being a campanula. Ruth of “Me, My Life, My Garden” said she thought it was a campanula also. She was also right.
But it was Lady Seashells, of “A Place to Be,” who said she had grown the plant before and that is was Canterbury Bells or campanula medium.
Campanula is a huge genus. I didn’t realize how huge until I started, with helpful hints from my fellow bloggers, to research what type of flower was growing in the garden I have on a gentle slope in my yard.
The genus campanula includes 300 species and several subspecies, which include annual, biannual and perennial plants. These plants range in size from 5 cm. to 2 m. in height. They range from arctic and alpine areas to grasslands, meadows and woodlands.
The family capanulaceae (bellflower) is named aptly from their bell shaped flowers. Campanula is Latin for “little bell.”
Campanula medium, commonly known as Canterbury bells is a popular cultivated garden plant in the United Kingdom. It was introduced to England from Europe in 1578.
In 1597 the herbalist John Gerard used campanula medium (Canterbury Bells) and campanula trachelium (Bats in the Belfry), to treat throat infections. I love the name “Bats in the Belfry.” I’d like to have it in my garden just for the name.
I’d probably forget I planted it though.
I was used to the spreading campanula, which I also have in my garden. While the flowers are close in color, the shape of the campanula medium is quite different as is it’s growth habit. The campanula medium grows upright on stocks about 16” tall. The shape of the flower is very tubular.
So, while the correct name of the plant is campanula medium, I prefer to call it the Alzheimer’s plant.
Why?
I still don’t remember planting it.
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The Butterflies are enjoying my Coreopsis that have started to bloom.
My friends and I went Salsa dancing Friday. These fuchsias remind me of Salsa dancers.
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I was taking to my husband last night about the name of my blog.
I said I wasn’t sure I had picked a name that was descriptive enough. I said perhaps I should have named it The Idiot Gardener. Because even though I am addicted to gardening I don’t know as much about it as I should, like what the &%*#@$ is this plant?
I know I should know what it is, since I planted it. And I know I should recognize it, but I don’t.
So, perhaps one of you nice knowledgeable gardeners out there could help me out.
What is it?
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I love the color of this rose. It is a very pale lavender,
and it has a wonderful fragrance.
Unfortunately this rose moved with us from our other house and the tag was lost in the process.
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I took a picture of my Passion Flower Vine which is starting to bloom. I finally have a picture of Passiflora to go with my post Frozen Passion that I wrote in January. My dog Mr. Wizard has been sitting in for the vine this whole time and he’s bored.
I was slammed for time so I just took ground cover photos and a couple of extras.
Abutilon 3 varieties
Anemone
Aquilegia (Columbine) a gazillion varieties
Azalea a few left
Bacopa
Bleeding Heart
Calendula 4 varieties
My ground covers are mostly all in bloom.
Campanula
Clematis 2 varieties
Cyclamen
Cymbidiums 5 varieties
Erigeron karvinshianus (Santa Barbara Daisy)
Fuchsia
Gerbera Daisy
Hebe
Hemerocallis (Daylily)
Heuchera (Coral bells) 6 varieties
Iberis (Candy Tuft)
Stachys byzantna (Lamb’s ear)
Zantedeschia (Calla)
Lamium 3 varieties
Lathyrus ((Sweet Peas)
Laurentia fluviatilis (Blue Star Creeper)
Lavatera
lavender
Leptospermum (Tea tree)
Mock orange
Nigella (Love-in-a-mist)
Orange Tree
Passiflora (Passion vine)
Pelargonium
Persimmon
Petunia
Phalaenopsis
Pomegranate
Primula (Primrose)
Rhododendron
Rockrose (Cistus)
Rosemary
Roses 17 varieties
Salvia 4 varieties
Snapdragon
Solanum (Potatoe vine)
Strawberries
Sweet Alysum
Thyme
Tomatoes
Verbena
Vinca
Violas
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I decicate this Green Thumb Sunday to my mom.
So, why do I eat, sleep, and breathe gardening?
I always say I love gardening because it’s very meditative.
It clears my mind and helps me to feel at peace.
It helps me to feel connected.
It makes me feel part of the earth.
It’s because I love to watch things grow.
The truth is, it’s my mom’s fault that I love to garden.
My mother loved gardening.
She got her love for gardening from her mother who together with her immigrant husband started a fruit farm in Washington State.
When I was a little girl my mom would spend all her spare time in her garden. And her time was extremely limited since she raised three kids on her own, worked full time, cooked all the meals and made all our clothes. Yet, there she was, weeding, hoeing, and clipping.
She used to ask me to help her weed her garden. I dreaded this. Weed? Weed? They will only grow back, why bother. Isn’t Batman on?
Sometimes my mom would come running in the back door in and say, “I want you to come and see something.”
I knew what these words meant. What she wanted me to see was some sort of project she had just completed in her garden. She would say, “Hurry!” as though our whole yard was suddenly going to rip itself free from the earth, get up, and run away. Maybe afraid of what my mom might do to it next.
I would go along with her grudgingly, rolling my eyes behind her back as she presented her latest effort. It looked sort of the same to me only rearranged a little and cleaner, less leaves.
I would say. “Looks great mom,” turn on my heel, and head back in the house to watch the latest episode of “The Monkees” My mother would still be standing there mesmerized as though she were looking at Quentin Marsalis’ soul.
My mother was also a thief. Well, she didn’t knock off 7/11’s or anything like that. She stole plants. And I was her accomplice. This was the only part of gardening I liked. We would throw some burlap sacks and a shovel into the back of her 67’ Camaro and then we were off.
My mom would drive up to the mountains where there was no traffic and drive slowly along until she would spy some beautiful fern or euphorbia or wild Iris. Then she would stop, take out her shovel and scoop it up, put it into the burlap sack and drive away.
She would also walk through nurseries and other people’s gardens snapping off pieces of plants and putting them into her pocket. I didn’t really like seeing her do this. There was something disconcerting about seeing your mom stealing in plain sight of other people. My life in foster homes flashing in front of my eyes, while my mom did time for swiping pelargoniums.
These were the only times my mom ever did anything remotely questionable.
Our house was always filled with fresh vegetables and fruits from my mom’s garden. My mom canned and made jelly and jam so we could enjoy the fruits of her labor all year round. She harvested and shelled every last walnut saved from the squirrels from our nine walnut trees. She filled coffee cans with them and gave them away for Christmas for lack of disposable cash.
My mother always found great joy in every aspect of gardening. I guess it rubbed off without me even noticing.
I was lucky. Before my mother passed, I realized my great love of gardening and I was able to share with her my passion. We were able to spend much time together in nurseries buying plants, sometimes stealing them. Going out to lunch with the window on my station wagon cracked so all the plants we had stuffed in the back could breathe.
Now I go to the nursery with my boys. My moms voice in my head, a secret dialogue I share with her. I hear her laughing, telling me what she likes, what she thinks I would like, and what I should do in my garden. She still influences me and always will.
Here is my Postscript:
If your mother is still alive, enjoy her, even if she drives you a bit crazy.
Happy Mother's Day.
Happy Gardening.
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What happens when an 11-year-old alpha dog meets a 29-year-old Mare?
Love at first sight. There was even some kissing involved.
I’ve said this before. I love our neighborhood. Everyone knows everyone. Our door is always open and people drop by any time. Sometimes even horses drop by. My six-year-old neighbor was given a horse for Christmas. Since she is just learning to ride, she was given an old girl named Dana.
Dana is sweet and gentle and slow. Perfect for a six-year-old girl.
Boomer kept looking longingly into Dana’s eyes and trying to lick her as if to say, “Hey, why aren’t you in a can of dog food?”
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I go back and forth about ordering plants through the mail.
I haven’t had much luck. I would say at least 50% of what I order—dies.
I have also received plant material that I did NOT order instead of what I did.
Remember though, I’m here at Gardener’s Anonymous, and when I see those lovely photos of plants and all those “special offers” I start to sweat, my face starts to twitch, and my hands start to shake.
I must have plants.
Of course, the mail order people know this. I get every mail order plant and bulb brochure ever published in my mailbox. My husband is under strict instructions to recycle them immediately, but I usually get the mail myself.
When I plant bare root—or those small two-inch pots with miniscule plants in them I get from mail order—I plant them and usually never see them again.
They disintegrate or are mowed down by snails and slugs.
I recently planted potted coneflowers, (I like to call them micro-pots or potlets), bare-root heuchera, and bare-root geraniums.
The first group of coneflowers I planted was instantly eaten by snails. Gone. Disappeared. Poof.
The heuchera began to emerge—and my slimy nemeses ate them too.
I’m trying to be good and organic, I really am.
My husband was working with copper sheeting in the garage and that gave me an idea. I know that slugs and snails don’t like copper. So I cut up some strips and made little rings around my next batch or coneflower potlets and bare-root geraniums.
I didn’t plant six of the remaining coneflower micro-pots but instead just put them on my back deck and kept them watered.
The copper sheeting circles seemed to work at first but then little by little the snails and slugs began to eat away at my mail order plants. I even found a slug living inside the copper circle. What nerve.
The plants that I kept on my deck, however, look great. They are growing and growing. What I have decided to do is replant them in larger pots, dig up my other plants, put them into pots and let them get bigger before I plant them again.
The only ones that are doing well are the geraniums. They grew so fast that the snails and slugs couldn’t keep up.
Please let me know what kind of luck you have had with mail order plants.
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While harvesting my fava beans I came across a familiar face—a face I haven’t seen in a year.
Upon seeing this lovely face and smelling her sweet perfume I uttered, “Where the heck did you come from?”
Yes another errant flower. A sweet pea, several to be exact.
Those little sweet-faced things did not grow where I tried to plant them this year. Oh no, Then snuck up inside my fava beans.
This is the second year in a row they wouldn’t grow where I planted them from seed.
Are they trying to tell me something?
Perhaps something about losing control.
Perhaps they're saying you have no control in you life.
No control of your children, your weight, your graying hairs, the pain in your joints, your sagging b…Oh never mind.
I am in control and to prove it I hacked it’s little head off and stuck it and its friends in a vase in my house.
I feel much better now.
Sweet peas are the type of flowering vine that thrive from being harvested everyday. The more you cut the more they produce.
Only harvest them when they are fully open because once they’re cut their buds wont open.
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