Tag Archives: helianthemum

Disorderly and Beloved Garden

my garden, , ,

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This morning Mr. Glad and I sat eating our Power Pancakes together, looking out the window at a fat robin who was hopping and flying around the garden.

 

 

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Patty’s Plum poppy

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I could see that there are enough sweet peas to make bouquets for eight neighbors, if I would pick them. The seed beds where I planted hyssop and fennel early in the week need sprinkling.

And the south side of the yard is a jungle! For most of our sojourn here it has been a nuisance getting water to that area, because of having only one faucet and the difficulty of dragging a heavy hose to and fro without smashing plants.

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campanula and rhododendron

Last fall we installed automatic irrigation, and the plants that had learned to do with intermittent drought are loving the new normal and are having the time of their lives.

Today I will go out and pull up the lamb’s ears that have grown into the path, and trim back the valerian flowers from the same path. I don’t want to touch the campanula yet, as it’s in its glory.

yellow helianthemum w pincushion

The yellow helianthemum that grows now in the middle of the pincushion flowers, well, it has surprised me by blooming for a few weeks so far.

That makes four helianthema (doesn’t it make sense to call the plural that?) in our garden: yellow, red, pink, and orange. None of the others bloomed as long as this yellow one, but next time they show their flowers I’ll take pictures so that I can write one blog post about the lot of them.

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I picked one giant bouquet of the sweet peas for my next-door neighbor. She said that she has been noticing them coming over the fence, and that she and her granddaughter have been drying flowers to make greeting cards. I could see the gleam in her eye as she contemplated all the pretty flowers in that bunch.

As for me, I’m not being at all crafty these days, unless you count the neverending creating of order and space indoors and out. Lots of out-of-the-ordinary things are coming up for the two of us in the next few months, and taking some amount of time and mental effort in preparation. It all makes me treasure today, when I can be home and pull some ordinary weeds.

I pose my nest among flowers.

crafts, family, my garden

When the latest birthday package came in the mail I was alone in the house. I unwrapped the tissue paper knowing already that the gift inside had been handmade by my daughter-in-law Joy. It appeared to be something very small and lightweight….and then out came a knitted nest of eggs! The beauty of them and the love that had been expressed by the patient labor…my hands actually began to shake — lucky these eggs are soft and comfortable and not brittle.

I began to pose my new toys around the house, and then went outdoors to find a natural setting too. Every day it seems there is a new flower somewhere, so I had lots of choices of where to plant my nest.

I don’t remember what these tall spiky flowers are; they grow from bulbs I planted a few years ago. They are striking for a couple of weeks, but then the flowers get too heavy and the stalks lie down on the sidewalk by the front door.

So we should enjoy them right now at their peak, before they get annoying. If you enlarge the photo above you might see Mr. Glad’s bent back, beyond the rosemary bush at the top.

And a glimpse of Johnny Jump-Ups and various other little blooms behind this close-up.

A happy discovery was that the helianthemum I have been nursing along for almost two years has finally bloomed! I know it does still look a bit scraggly but I am greatly encouraged. I think it is named Henfield Brilliant.

Eventually I took a picture of my birthday eggs nestled among the simple alyssum flowers. Then I brought them back indoors to be the near-perfect springtime table decoration. They would be completely perfect if they didn’t make me miss the dear gift-giver herself. Thank you, Joy!

Brilliant but not blotchy helianthemum.

my garden, other gardens
My heart was set on a Chocolate Blotch — it is a variety of the little shrub helianthemum. After browsing nurseries both local and online, I became 95% sure that the one I have growing at church is that type, not that the name made any sense.

These plants are a genus in in the family Cistaceae, as is the cistus, which I’m also fond of. They are both called rockrose, but that confuses me, so this is one case where I think I’ll stick to the botanical name.


Whatever its name, I couldn’t find one to buy. And I love the way it trails over the side of the half barrel as in this photo where it is way in the background behind the poppies and everything. I wanted one for my garden at home, but my hope dwindled and I cultivated contentment instead of a shrub.

Then when I was fussing over these church plantings recently I noticed that the plant with deep orange flowers was trying to take over the container, not just spreading its branches but sending down lots of new roots, so why not cut it in half and take some home?

I did that just before I got sick, and the clumps of roots sat in a bucket on my patio for several days. I knew they had to be planted before I went to Monterey, so on the eve of my departure I went crazy with pots and trowels and Supersoil.

There are two colors of flowers that cause pain to my sensibilities when they are planted near each other: orangey-red and fuschia. My backyard rhododendron is fuschia, but it is in a corner with only blues close by.

The deep clear orange of this shrub seemed to me just what I need to bring balance to the many places crowded with blues and lavenders, and it won’t confuse things by adding any red tones.

My color ideas are no doubt strange; my husband says that all the colors in nature go together. But one year I had some red-orange bulbs blooming next to the yellow climbing rose and when I looked out the window it seemed to me that the two plants were spoiling each other’s beauty. So I dug up the bulbs.

I trimmed the divisions of my helianthemum prize back quite a bit, and planted one clump in the middle of the lambs’ ears and pincushion flowers, next to the lavender and the oregano. Four Oriental lilies have now pushed up in the back of that bed, where it seemed a few weeks ago only one would grow; I had thought that I planted my big bag of bulbs from Costco so late that most of them must have rotted.

I wasn’t in too big a rush that I missed noticing that nasturtiums are coming up here and there, glory to God! Last year I tried various colors of many varieties, plants and seeds, hoping that some would naturalize.

As I was writing this post I looked some more for photos of “my” rockrose, and this time I found many more and helpful photos, broadening the possibilities to include Welsh Flame and Henfield Brilliant. A good photo explains why the name C. Blotch, and makes it clear that I don’t have that. After clicking back and forth among pictures and sites, I’m now 95% sure I have a Henfield Brilliant. This garden detective work is my kind of fun!