I imagine it was brother Tim who introduced me to this plant back when we were both kids. He seemed to always know every plant, at least by common name. I clearly remember seeing this plant growing wild by the Cedar River when my Dad took me fishing there in my early teens. Fragrant flowers stick in your mind that way.
When a plant grows well for you, you end up loving it even more. The Douglas fir bed has turned out to be an ideal spot for these short-lived perennials that self-seed ambitiously. I started with a packet of seeds of the white variety and now I have a wonderful mix of white, light lavender, and deeper lavender.
I especially like these plants under Leon’s Miracle Grow sculpture–they add to the whimsy his sculpture projects.
The plants have seeded into the lawn a bit and now into the memory garden nearby, but they are easy to root out or to move to another spot. They are considered invasive in some areas. 2020 may see their perfect Douglas fir site reinvented as a native plant garden, but it seems likely some dame’s rockets will remain.