A place for plant and garden lovers to unite
Ok, maybe this isn’t beautiful, but I love its practicality for stashing kids’ toys:
I don’t think kids are ever too young to begin learning that everything has its place. If you start teaching them when they’re little, they can carry those organizational skills through their entire lives. Which is pretty cool. (Image from Pinterest.)
I’ll be back tomorrow, hope to see you back here.
All my favorite weeds are back!
Like the Nigella, Love in a Mist:
And the Mexican Evening Primrose (well, they’ve been back for a few weeks):
And my beloved Gaillardia is finally back:
I call them weeds because, aside from the Gaillardia, they are uninvited guests.
We didn’t plant them, and since the house is a rental, who knows who did. I do know that all sorts of plants pop up right through the landscaping fabric and gravel. The Nigella, the Bachelor’s Buttons, the Larkspur – they laugh at that so-called weed barrier.
My rules for weeds are simple (and common): If the plants are not sharp (like Nightshade), don’t produce sharp seeds (like Goatheads or Foxtail), aren’t poisonous (like Poison Ivy), don’t irritate my landlady (Dandelions), and they’re pretty, they get to stay.
Last fall, I noticed a new plant that sprang up in the front yard. It grew outward, like a vine. I remember noticing it and thinking it was pretty. So I let it stay.
It died back during the winter. And this spring, it has come back to life with a vengeance.
In only its second season, it’s almost as big as the Spanish Broom, which has been there at least five years (that’s it on the left):
What the what? What the heck is that plant? Where did it come from?
It was pretty, and I liked its yellow flowers:
They may have had a fragrance, but I couldn’t tell as it was right next to the uber-fragrant Broom.
I didn’t recognize the plant, so I called upon my good friend David, over at the Desert’sEdgeBlogspot, for help. He in turn asked his friend, a fellow named Dave Ferguson, curator at the Rio Grande Botanical Garden. Dave kindly wrote back:
>>>>”Yellow Sweet Clover – Melilotus officinalis
Common plant in Albuquerque (and pretty much all over the world). A little like Baptisia, but plant is more branching with smaller leaves and flowers much smaller in terminal spikes at the ends of all the branches. Introduced into the US from Eurasia, usually behaves as a biennial, but can be an annual, or if happy a perennial. I think birds move the sees around. Easy to purchase seed of. Root is a bit parsnip-like. Whole plant smells good (some people think it stinks). Bees and lots of other insects love it, some butterflies eat it as caterpillars (notably Sulphurs and Blues). It will re-seed by the thousands if allowed to ripen fruit in a favorable location. and I pull them in the botanic garden; however, years ago we actually seeded some in a “wildflower” area (took several years to get rid of it, and it still comes up occasionally in that area). Can be cut for hay, used for honey production, etc. Will bloat livestock if they get into it and eat too much too fast.
Melilotus alba is almost as common, and has white flowers. The yellow one tends to start flowering a week or two before the white one.
Sweet Clover won’t survive in my yard because it is rabbit / deer candy.
And so on.
Dave>>>>
I tell ya, both of these gentlemen are liking walking, breathing encyclopedias. Thanks Daves! Much appreciated.
So it’s Yellow Sweet Clover. I don’t remember ever seeing it around town before, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled for it now.
It meets my requirements for being allowed to stay – it doesn’t have thorns, it’s pretty. But I read that the main plant will die at the end of its second year. It’ll flower from May to September, and will throw out as many seeds as possible during that time so its legacy lives on. As Dave said above, thousands of seeds.
Um, no thank you!
So the poor guy had to go. But I’m certain we haven’t seen the last of him.
Good riddance!
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Liza’s Great Chayote¹ Growing Experiment Update:
THEY’RE GROWING LIKE CRAZY!!!
So awesome!
I’ll be back tomorrow, hope to see you here!
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¹ Chayote is a fruit in the gourd family, like squash. It’s native to Mexico. It’s more nutritious than regular squash, and it’s sturdier, which is great for cooking in stews like calabacitas.
I’ve been experimenting with growing them, this is pretty much the furthest I’ve gotten, which is why I’m so excited. My hope is to spark a Chayote growing and eating craze, because that would be fun.
Chayote = The New Arugula.
You heard it here first, haha!
More Zia symbol love:
Is it quirky that people have gates with the state symbol welded into them? I think so. And I love it. But I’m also one of those people who think that money spent on good-looking gates or doors is money well spent.
I love me a handsome door.
What about you, do you think it’s quirky?
Hey locals, what do you think is quirky about ‘burque? Sometimes I’m worried that I’ve been here so long that I take the weird stuff for granted. I’d love to see what you think makes Albuquerque the weirdest (and therefore charmingest) city ever. If you send me photos, I’ll post them with credits to you. Email me or message me on facebook. And thanks in advance for your contributions!
Hello Flowerists, and happy Friday!
Welcome back to the Good To Grow site, and thanks for being here.
Ahhh, beautiful Friday. Here in Albuquerque, we’ve had rain all week!! That hopefully will lead us straight into a gorgeous spring weekend. It’s looking good so far!
Hopefully the weather treats all of you gently this weekend. A tired nation could use that. In the meantime, let’s have some fun. Today we’re hosting an all-new Panel of Experts. Let’s get things started by saying hi to them. Hi Experts!
“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Liza!”
You guys are so cute! From left to right, that’s Andy Williams, Tim Thackaberry, EZ Ed Johnson, Dottie Correll and Lewis Casey. If you’d like to know more about them, please click here.
Speaking of spring showers, here’s this week’s question for our Experts:
Q. People say that April showers bring May flowers. What are your favorite flowers?
Expert Andy is going to start us off as usual:
A.
A.
A. I have always waited for the return of the yellow roses. I knew them best a long time ago, when they grew just outside my bedroom window. They were like large lemon drops or a hundred tiny suns. I want to rest underneath their dark green leaves and royal thorns, and smell the sweet scent of summer.
A.
Behold the lowly Daisy! – quite plain, no romantic
Aroma, or fancy frilly leaves –just down home warm and welcoming. You can’t help but smile when you see one dancing and waving to you in the breeze. While seemingly unshowy or dramatic, the daisy has a fascinating history.
From around 2200 B.C. daisies were among the flowers that grew in ancient Egyptian temple
Gardens. These gardens were cultivated for their herbal and medicinal qualities. The daisy maintained a key role in the field of medicine during medieval times. The name daisy came from the Anglo-Saxon “daie eage” meaning “day’s eye” – re: thought to cure eye problems. King Henry VIII relied on eating daisies for various ailments as; gout, stomach-ulcer pains and for treating wounds.
However, no history of the daisy could be complete without mention of the association with love. “He loves me, He loves me not” as you breathlessly strip each petal and hope it comes out, “He loves me” —- and thereby hangs a tale:
One of the first swains who caught my eye in the first year of high school, started leaving a daisy
Hooked in the vents of my locker each day — no note —just the lovely yellow daisy. I was overwhelmed with “Puppy love” – he was one of my first serious beaus and we developed a grand friendship. In the process, he learned of my 3 week summer job where I had worked for this little company that made, of all things, Rat Poison! Hey! money is money when you are 15!
Each piece was hand wrapped and then packaged.
The daises continued to appear on my locker, but after that were accompanied with a note addressed to: “ Rat Poison Daisy” – Of course placed on the outside of my locker for all the world to see and hence I acquired the nickname of “Rat Poison Daisy”. He meant it kindly, but unfortunately all the teasing ended our romance quickly. However, I still have a fondness for daisies – remembering one of my first loves and that first daisy found in my locker. I do believe they have magical powers; “He loves me, he loves me not, He loves me!”
A.
PFR +
Nice, everyone. I think we covered everything in those answers – dirty jokes, Dead songs, roses, rat poison and rain. You’re all awesome! Thanks for sharing your opinions with us.
That does it for our Experts panel this week. Thanks to the Experts for bringing a smile to my face. I hope everyone enjoyed their interesting take on today’s question.
The Experts will return in exactly one week. They hope to see you back here.
Up next, the answer to the current puzzler:
???Real or Fake???
Last week, I asked if this Orchid was real or fake:
Let’s see how you answered:
Ivynettle from Letters and Leaves wrote, “Real.
And – bwahahaha! I’m ridiculously pleased to have fooled some people with that picture.
(And it was actually night when I took it – well spotted, Gennafer!)”
Claude from Random Rants and Prickly Plants wrote, “Real… but Ive never really thought orchids looked real anyway.”
Steph from Indianapolis wrote, “Just like all the Mother’s Day tributes these are beautiful. I’ve seen some pretty good fake orchids, but I gotta go with REAL on this one.
Liza you give out the best prizes! Can’t wait to use my voucher for those coupons! xo”
Then she doubted herself and added, “Real looking fake?”
Martha from Plowing Through Life wrote, “The flowers look too soft to be fake, so I’m voting real!”
Jason from Garden in a City wrote, “Real.”
Tom from Midwestern Jungle wrote, “Real. And I’m glad I forgot to answer the previous one because I would have been wrong!”
That’s 6 votes real, 1 votes fakish.
[The above section has been revised after I realized I omitted one of the answers. It's all fixed now!)
What’s the correct answer? Let’s take a wider view:
It’s not that great of a ph0to, but hopefully it’s good enough for you to see that it’s real!
Claude, I agree, Orchids look almost fake to me because they are so oddball and otherworldly. But they are beautiful and hard to duplicate with plastic. The Orchid pictured above is at my Mom’s house – it blooms all the time.
Ivy, you were first with the correct answer, so that makes you the best answerer. For being so speedy this week, you’ve earned the title of “Ivy, the Orchid Whisperer and also Bunny Whisperer but the Important Part for Right Now Is the Orchid Part” for the next week. So for example, if you’re working at the nursery and a customer asks you about some bedding plants, you can pawn that customer off to another employee by explaining that you’re “Ivy, the Orchid Whisperer and also Bunny Whisperer but the Important Part for Right Now Is the Orchid Part.” I’m sure your coworkers won’t resent you at all! You may multiply all the prizes by one family portrait. Congratulations!
Everyone’s a winner for playing this week. To show my appreciation, I’d like you each to have the following prizes: Five spring showers, one bath, two slices of lemon cheesecake, 14 1/3 extra credit points, one glittery moonrise, seven May flowers (your choice), miniature salmon, three neon mountaintops, bribes, one pleasant melody, a cup of honey, 18 chocolate chips, an alignment, and four naps. Congratulations, and thanks so much for playing!
And now, the new puzzler:
???Real or Fake???
Another Orchid, but this one with a terrible photo. Haha, my way of trying to trick you! Is this plant real or fake?
Think you know the answer, smartyplants? Leave your best guess in the comments section or on my facebook wall. You have until midnight next Thursday, May 23rd, MST (that’s 2a.m. EST) to cast your vote. I’ll reveal the answer and the winner(s) after next week’s panel of Experts. Remember, the prizes may be imaginary but the link to your site and the glory of winning are oh-so-real.
I’ll be back tomorrow, hope to see you here.
Welcome back to the Good To Grow site, and thanks for being here.
Today I’m hosting the May 2013 Garden Nonbloggers’ Bloom Day, for those readers who want to show off their flowers but don’t have a blog of their own (or who do – anyone can join in).
I love it. Living in Albuquerque, I’ve been telling people in other parts of the country that we’d send them spring just as soon as we were done with it. It’s nice to see the photographic proof of it happening.
Also, I really enjoy seeing other people’s gardens and flowers. I hope you do, too.
Let’s start first with Nancy Mumpton, who lives in neighboring Arizona.
Says Nancy:
Nancy, those are gorgeous! It never ceases to delight me that soft fluttery flowers can come from such menacing looking cacti. Another good reason not to let thorns stand in the way of falling in love.
Thanks, Nancy, for sharing your blooms!
Next up is everyone’s favorite DC-area Optician, Virginia Burton.
Says Ginny,
>>>>”Mostly, it’s Iris — here, there, and everywhere!”
“Red at Night”
“Frank Adams”
“Pallida”
“Flavescens”
Huge NOID white, which I suspect is “Snow Flurry”
The back porch
Along the sidewalk
Above the kitchen sink. That’s where I put all the flowers that I’ve found broken off by people’s stupid dogs or that have flopped over onto the sidewalk or into the street. Plus the three tomatoes that my husband plans to plant as soon as the weather warms up consistently.
Ginny, your back porch looks so inviting. I love how green your part of the country is – there are so many trees around DC and Virginia. It’s a pretty, pretty area. And it looks like you’re doing your part to add to its beauty. Nicely done!
We finished with our Irises a week or two ago, so it’s nice to see yours. Thanks for sharing!
If you’d like to send in photos of what’s blooming in or around your casa, you can email your photos to me at lizatheplantlady@gmail.com. I’ll post them on the 16thish of each month, the day after the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.
Time once again for photos of what’s blooming in and around the casa:
(Bougainvillea)
(Thunbergia)
(Sphaeralcea, Globe Mallow)
The Mexican Evening Primrose is as pretty in the evenings…
…as in the morning:
(Penstemon ‘Firecracker’)
(Delphinium, Larkspur)
(Osteospermums)
(Agastache)
(Spartium, ‘Spanish Broom’)
(A blooming onion)
(Nigella, ‘Love in a Mist’)
(Nigella, ‘Love in a Mist’)
Inside the casa, one of the Euphorbia milii plants busted out some adorable new blooms:
The Birthday Orchid continues to bloom strong:
And Nel, a Chlorophytum comosum ‘Spider Plant,’ flowers continuously:
And my backdoor container garden oasis has blooms throughout:
I love flowers!
Thanks to Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for encouraging us to post photos of what’s blooming around the 15th of each month.
If you have pretty flower photos to share, but not a blog, send me your pics (lizatheplantlady@gmail.com) and I’ll post them tomorrow. (If you do have a blog and want to send me photos, that’s ok, too!)
Hope to see you back here!
LOOK! CHAYOTE SPROUTS!!!!
My regular readers will understand that I’M SO EXCITED I CAN HARDLY STAND IT because they know I’ve been trying to grow these little squash-like buggers for a long time. You can read about the experiences here, here, and here. Not to mention here. This year I’m trying to grow them in a vegetable container outside my back door. So far so good!
Now I’m going to be a nervous wreck until they get bigger!
This is terribly exciting news.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled life.
I like this funky little space. For one, it’s a good upcycle to use those pallets to create an outdoor living area. Also, I’m a sucker for red.
I got the image from Pinterest.
I’ll be back tomorrow with photos of pretty flowers, for May’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, and on Thursday with May’s Garden Nonbloggers’ Bloom Day. Hope to see you back here.
Morning light.
Cute little baby Thunbergia ‘Lemon Star” bloom.
It looks orange in the morning light.
But by late afternoon, you can see that it’s ‘Lemon Star’, not ‘Orange Wonder’:
I’m completely charmed by those cheerful little flowers.
You can expect roughly 16,000 more photos of them in the months and years to come.
You’re welcome, in advance!
Moving on…
Good To Grow Presents Gazania Theater:
Gazania #2: “Hey Chester. Chester. CHESTER!”
Gazania #1: “Whaaaaat?”
Gazania #2: “We gotta get up. The Sun’s up. We gotta get up.”
Gazania #1: “Leave me alone, Hank, I’m sleepy.”
Gazania #1 & #2: “COFFEE!!!! SOMEONE BRING US COFFEE!”
Gazania #1: “Ahhh, now this is nice.”
Gazania #2: “Yeah, we got it pretty good in this lifetime.”
The End.
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Because I’m a dork!
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Hey, nonbloggers, or anyone, email me photos of what’s blooming in and around your casa (lizatheplantlady@gmail.com). I just realized that it’s almost time for the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post, on the 15th, which means I’ll post photos from you on the 16th. If I get any!
New Mexicans loooooove to use the Zia symbol to show state pride.
(This design is in Old Town, Albuquerque. But it’s not old.)
