Another Plant Delights purchase from maybe eight years ago, this plant is growing well in the challenging, dry partial shade of the Douglas fir bed. And it doesn’t seem to mind! Extremely carefree and drought tolerant, it is spreading out a bit and blooms well every year now.
The foliage is remarkable enough, with large, textured, and spiny leaves clumping up to three feet across. Then, in July, the flower spikes add a sculptural element that is very intricate and symmetrical and subtly colored.
My 2020 plans for this plant are to try some root cuttings in the next month or two to see if I can get some clones to spread around the yard and share or sell.
Purchased from Plant Delights nursery about four years ago, this interesting plant surprised me last year when it bloomed for the first time. Prior to that, I hadn’t even noticed it in the Douglas Fir bed, as it hadn’t grown much in a couple of years. It is growing well again this year and putting up flower stalks.
My 2020 plans for this plant are to get more photos of it and feed it well to keep it healthy. It seems to like cooler, wetter spring that we had and is blooming much earlier this year than last.
I started taking an inventory of the seedlings I’ve got on the shelves outside the greenhouse. Below are photos of those I checked on and potted on today.
Woody vine of some kind–haven’t identified it yet.
Note: this one is out of order, as I failed to post it on the right day.
Often when you order seeds online, the seed seller adds a bonus packet or two in the package as a thank you for ordering. Sometimes that “gift” has seemingly little value, like mixed Bachelor’s Buttons or old carrot seeds. When I ordered some seeds from Africa, though, the seller included Agapanthus praecox seeds–just a few of them. I was skeptical that I could grow them, but I gave it a whirl. I’m so glad I did!
Two of the seeds sprouted and grew and I’ve grown them on together. Here is what the plant looks like today:
I have no idea when feverfew landed in my garden. It seems like it has been there a long time. It seeds itself around in pots near the greenhouse and in the memory garden, as well. The fragrant, charming, and cheery plant is welcome wherever it grows.
Often, I’ll prick out volunteer seedlings growing among tree seedling pots and move them to their own pots for setting out in the garden as fillers when the time comes. They are flexible and easy–they can be transplanted any time. Their bright green, chrysanthemum-y foliage is beautiful on its own, but come late June or early July, hundreds of white daisies smother the leaves. They attract lots of interesting pollinators.
This year, I notice I have a semi-double seedling and a single form blooming in the memory garden.
My 2020 plans for these carefree plants are to pot more seedlings on and keep them handy for filling in during the autumn, since they aren’t shy about blooming even late in the year if given half a chance.
I’m not positive of the identity of this plant–it doesn’t look like most of the photos of Salvia hians, but there are a few photos I’ve seen that match it. Salvia pratensis was also suggested by a plant identification app. This plant was one of several that Fuchsia Society member Sally Abella passed to me from her garden. It has spread somewhat agressively around my garden, but because it is easy to weed out and has a lot of positive merits, I’ve never resented it enough to eradicate it entirely.
The leaves of these plants are large and hairy, but not fully felted like some of the Salvia clan. They form a loose rosette and then impressive, multi-branched spikes of blue-purple flowers shoot up in late June to crown the plants for a month or more.
My 2020 plans for this plant are to weed it out where it might be unwanted and nurture it everywhere else.
My brother brought me this plant for the memory garden in 2018. We were unclear about its identity, but I’ve since done some research and found out it is alfalfa! How sadly citified must I be that I didn’t recognize such a well-known crop plant? The plant is surprisingly ornamental. It gets big and bushy–three feet tall and wide and starts blooming in June with soft lavender-blue clover-like flower heads. It is planted in a tough spot under in poor soil under a Douglas fir tree and shrugs off that adversity.
In 2020, I’m just enjoying the simplicity of this plant and trying to see if pollinators like it as much as they seem to like other leguminous garden plants, like the lupines and clovers nearby.
This is a somewhat common houseplant and also a poplular groundcover in warmer areas of the world. My plants aren’t as purple as I’ve seen in photos due to a lack of bright sun, but they do grow vigorously, providing trailing stems and some lovely pink flowers now and again. Leon brought my original cutting back from his cousin Brenda’s house about six years ago. It was never on my wish list, but now I have about eight of them, as they are so easy to propagate and it feels so wasteful to throw trimmings away!
In 2020, I’m using these as foliage plants around the patio–I cut them back hard in early spring and potted them into better, fertile soil in larger pots. They are leafing out abundantly now and adding some lush purply-green to our back yard oasis.
Started from seed in 2017 for the memory garden, I don’t recall for sure from where the seeds came or the identity of the cultivar. Four of the plants remain in that garden and have cheery tubular flowers with contrasting throats and feature jellybean colors of purple and pink. They get about 15″ tall and are nicely uniform, starting to bloom here in late June, which times out perfectly after the columbines and lupines.
My 2020 plans for these plants are to cut them back after flowering, keep the weeds at bay, feed them, and hope they don’t die out like so many of the short-lived penstemon hybrids.
