This little corner also houses sorrel,scarlet pimpernel a bit later, and other wild flowers some people refer to as weeds.
Interestingly a lot of the flowers in my wildflower book also appear in my weed book. It's largely about location and density and whether it's a pest to crops. It's not about some moral failing on the part of the plant, though some folks talk as if it were.
Anyway I treasure them all.
I noticed them as I was rolling up the daffodil foliage. I just sort of take it in handfuls, roll them back and hide them under the ground cover. That way they decay naturally, out of sight, and you don't see them yellowing and dying off. But they do preserve the nutrition for next year's flowers.
I have a few square feet of land, and I talk as if it was the back forty.
A little garden can be a place of beauty. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy this more than when I had a acre, too much garden to tend. I always felt I was running to catch up. But I see more of this tiny area.
DeleteI once intentionally let a random plant grow just outside my dining room doors - waiting and waiting for that thing to develop a flower. It would be a doozy, I was sure. It got to be nearly over my head when a friend finally asked me what it was. "I have no idea, but I'm hoping it's something special." To which he replied, "I think you've just got a weed there." Deflated, I finally ended up pulling it before it ever flowered. I wish I hadn't succumbed to the idea that it was "just a weed". Of course it was a weed! But I bet there was a flower in that weed that never got to bloom.
ReplyDeleteVery likely tiny blooms. But if you get another, you'll know to just let it be and see what happens. If it was amaranth, you'd have ended up with millions of them, very prolific with seeds.
DeleteThere is a lot of vetch in the front landscape here.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great subject for painting.
DeleteIt is a lovely bit of field-and-fen. And it's packed full of tiny wonders - I love seeing all of them.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Chris from Boise
I do too. In a miniature area there's a lot of life. I often see a tiny toad on the path right here.
DeleteI have a few "weeds" I've dug up and planted in my flowerbeds because I like the flowers. They die off as it get hot and pop back up the next year.
ReplyDeleteWell, I emailed you whining that many many efforts to get feeds to accept your URL hadn't worked, etc, and I thought one last try. And, blow me down, me hearties, it worked. So delete the whining email..too funny. Maybe I scared it straight.
DeleteThe back forty can be anything you want it to be! Weeds, at least to my mind, are in the eye of the beholder. When our garden was on the local garden tour we were taken to task because we had milkweed growing in our flowerbed...planted for the butterflies. We were told by several of the snippy gardeners (uttered in a posh voice) that those were not garden material and were noxious...sniff...weeds. Bah. Needless to say we told them the butterflies were more important. (wanted to tell them they could just get on their snippy horse and ride on outta there, but we were too nice).
ReplyDeleteI bet they were garden club ladies..I know a couple of them, more about social position than gardens. The club is just a ladylike activity, not a serious interest. I think a dying breed. real gardeners would instantly approve of native plants there for a purpose.
Delete