Saturday, July 19, 2008

Plants to plant...



Well, I once again got myself into mischief at Annie's. And I mail-ordered a bunch of plants. And I bought a Buddleia "Sungold". So I'm overflowing with an abundance of plant material again. I was going to put the "Sungold" Butterfly Bush in the ground but there's a possibility (how strong I'm not sure) that it could naturalize. So in the interest of the integrity of my nearby open space it will stay in a pot where I will conscientously snip away flowers before they go to seed. Some other acquisitional highlights are - an Iochroma coccinea! this genus is pretty new to me, but I do enjoy nightshades, and it should attract hummingbirds; a spectacular morning glory (see accompanying photo); and a Holodiscus discolor (Creambush) for my hill. I'm planting this Holodiscus right behind my wild rose - I envision frothy blossoms cascading above fragrant little Rosa californica blooms! But I sort of doubt it will happen this year (both plants are only about a foot tall) but then again one never does know.
In other news - I finally succeeded in succesful Ipomoea alba germination! I think it probably was damping off as a previous comment mentioned, because I forgot to water the newly planted seeds for a couple of warm days and the top layer of soil dried out. So when I went outside to check on them (another factor in their favor - they were outside) the first seed had popped out and the seed coat just slid off on its own! Further more, the cotyledons were enormous! I ended up with three happy little seedlings to festoon my garden with!
Right now my Delphinium cardinale plant is blooming. Now I've previously grown the usual garden Delphiniums with mixed results, and I really love the flowers. When they come in at work I admire all the different varieties and the flowers seem to be all sorts of variations and combinations of blues, purple-lavenders, and white. This Delphinium is much the same, but the colors are orange, red, and yellow! It's native to Southern California, and one source I looked at suggested it might range as far north as this county. I did see a blue native Delphinium once in the wild. It was at Sunol Regional Wilderness and it was quite spectacular!
So that's all for now - back to my many bags of potting soil!

1 comment:

Deni said...

Love that first photo!