11/24/2023 0 Comments Bigleaf aster seedlings![]() Raising a family gave me the impetus to start gardening. Finally I went to college and studied biology, accidentally becoming a birder and amateur entomologist along the way. Next, I obsessed over seashells and all the animals living in tidal pools and along the shore. Hope all your fall blooms are reviving your gardening spirit after the heat of the summer!įirst it was bugs in jars. Well, only 3 plants in this post, but it's late and I find myself thinking longingly of bed, so I'll sign off for now. Hopefully I'll be sharing some stunning combinations including this plant in future years. I don't feel like I'm using fameflower effectively yet, but I'm slowly moving my new plants around to see what I can figure out. I've transplanted a couple of these seedlings and passed a couple others on to gardening friends they transplant and reestablish quite readily. The seeds must be fairly heavy, because I've never found a seedling very far from the parent plant. ![]() It's not enough to be a nuisance - in fact, I wouldn't mind if the plant would reseed a bit more frequently. This plant reseeds a bit, which I truly love. I highly recommend it, although finding it may be a bit of a challenge. Truthfully, though, it's hard to get a good photo of the entire plant because of the spacial separation between flowers and foliage, but the picture above captures the feeling it leaves me with. The bright magenta color shows up magnificently in the hot, afternoon sun of the summer. They don't open until the heat of the day they close as the light weakens in the evening. The blooms are held 6-12" above the foliage on long, slender stems. Like moss rose, it thrives in poor soil and hot sun, with little water. The foliage looks rather like a rangy version of moss rose or sedum. I think I've written before about fameflower or rockpink ( Phemeranthus calycinus, formerly known as Talinum calycinum), but I really want to show off this clump of it. With the petioles of the flowers responding to gravity and turning the individual blooms to face upwards, the panicles ended up looking like baby's breath, winding among the stronger blooms of the other plants in the garden - a very nice effect. When it started blooming, however, the individual stems gracefully sank down into the surrounding plants, making it look like the single, bigleaf aster plant was significantly broader and shorter than it really is. In fact, if I'd been more on the ball, I'd have cut it sharply back in mid June. The blue sage in this photo is a horticultural variety that stays shorter and blooms a deeper blue than the standard species.īigleaf aster is tall - about 3' - and I was not too excited this summer as I watched it gain its full height in leggy splendor. I find myself absolutely loving this combination of blue sage ( Salvia azurea) and sand lovegrass ( Eragrostis trichodes) from my front garden bed. Since this is, ostensibly, a garden blog, I thought I would take a moment and share with you a couple of the "pretties" from my garden during the last month or so. That disclaimer out of the way, occasionally I find unplanned combinations of plants growing in my gardens that really please me, or a single plant that is just simply special in a truly visual sense. I love my gardens.but I can see how other people might not be quite so enamored of them. If a plant supports a good cohort of insects, I'm likely to let it remain in my garden, even if it sports tattered foliage for part of the year or if the color of its bloom clashes with the blooms around it. If a few seedlings come up, uninvited and unplanned, I'm likely just to leave them where they sprout, rationalizing that they obviously like the conditions there. When I come across a new plant, I buy it and figure out where I'm going to plant it later. I love plants, especially native plants, but I love the animals that live on and with them equally as much. Simply stated, my flower beds can look a bit chaotic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |