Some folks asked to see the flowers and suchlike I’ve been so busy with, so here are a few for you to enjoy. Forgive the poor quality of my cell phone camera, I haven’t been able to figure out how to connect my real camera to my computer mainly because I’m lazy and the cell camera is fine most of the time. I’ll see what I can do to get better quality pics in future posts. I love this plant. I jokingly call it the “incarceration plant” because I can never correctly pronounce the name, Incarnivillus. It’s so tall! And for a while, it had five or six blooms on it at the same time. It’s not so common in gardens, and I’ve enjoyed having it a great deal. Hopefully the seed pods were properly pollinated, as I’ll be growing more from seed if I can. This my fern bed. Another early spring joy, although experienced gardeners think of them as “common.” I refuse to be snobby about plants; if I like it, I am going to cultivate it and I really like ferns. Sometimes, I’ll stand near them and imagine myself in the antediluvian world, when dragonflies were as big as eagles and ferns grew as large as trees. This is my “Nancy bed.” Lamium is a wonderful plant for several reasons, but you have to be careful with it- it’s highly invasive. In early spring, it makes the most wonderful pink flower, and the leaves are dressed in silver, hence the name of this variety “Silver Beacon.” It will grow in deep shade, dry soil, anywhere. Believe it or not, this bed, over 40 feet long, began with six modest plants a season ago. If you’ve got a problem area you need covered, I recommend it. Professionals don’t like it so much as it spreads too fast and crowds out more delicate plants. Still, given how often large properties have nigh-impossible to cultivate shady areas, I think it’s a great plant to have. This is something I’m very proud of, and I’m sorry the picture quality is poor. This area was a completely overgrown mess when I started working on it. The property where I’m living is in an older subdivision, and the first owners were gardeners for shizzle. The second owners were total asshats and let everything get out of control. When I got here, I was shocked to find all kinds of wonderful little cultivars struggling to come up in the deep shade that the ornamental bushes had come to create. So I spent several days digging up, cutting back, and “shaping” the shrubs and trees to bring more light to the area. I then planted a number of hardy and shade tolerant plants, annuals and perennials, including hostas, geraniums, I’ve even got some trillium in there. I like the pathway as natural dirt, but someday I may put a few pebbles or bark on it. Hostas are so “common,” but for me, they’ve become a sort of obsession. This is my “baby” hosta, it’s only a couple inches off the ground and has the most delicate leaves and flowers. There are apparently scores of hosta varieties out there, and while I’m not going to put in all of them, I do like having some that aren’t the standard white-edged green leaf kind. I’ve also got a “giant orange” hosta, I’ll put a pic up of that later. Hostas grow well anywhere, and as long as they are moderately well watered, they will grow and grow and grow. The flower isn’t so showy, but if you have problem areas with shade or poor soil, they are great. Also, splitting them is a cinch, and you really only need to buy one plant you like; every spring you’ll be able to split it in half and have two. These are a funny story. I started getting into gardening last year, as you all may recall, and I didn’t (and still don’t) know that much about it. So I put in this long, winding bed and seeded it with one of those cheap big-box store “wildflower mixes” not knowing that only 3 of the 10 flowers in it would make it in the area in which I seeded them. This is one of the 3 who performed, and boy! Did they ever! In early spring, most plants in this part of the world make flowers that are pink or purple, or yellow. So it was really great to have an orange plant in the mix, and you could see that splash of irregular color from a long distance. Very satisfying. I think they are zinnias, but I’ve long since thrown away the box so I’m not sure.

I promise to work on making my camera talk to my computer so I can offer better shots in the future. These photos were taken last month, and a lot has changed since then. When you need to find that sense of wonder in life, watching plants grow is right up there on the list of Very Cool Things. I’m also happy to report that even idiot amateurs like me can make things grow, and that’s pretty uplifting when one feels as if one can accomplish nothing of value in life (like, making the Democrats act like Democrats).

If you’ve got plants you’d like to show off, I’d welcome them here. As well as your own funny plant stories.