random pics of plants I like

[patandchickens]

I was wandering around for a couple minutes yesterday with a camera. Here is a view out the front window towards the chicken tractor's current spot. The path and bed look only so weedy because I love blue flax and have a hard time bringing myself to remove volunteers, all the more so once they get a decent size, and now that they're starting to flower I figure I will just leave them there for a little while longer... )

Here is part of a dry mostly-shady bed, in case anyone else besides me is perpetually on the lookout for things that like dry shade (Lamium, lily of the valley, lemon balm, 'Hermann's Pride' yellow archangel, yellow perennial foxglove, violets, perennial geranium, and most of the bushes are snowberry)

And some more of it, showing why Lamium cultivars (especially the white and pale-pink flowered ones, although this is not one of them here) is my very favorite dry-mostly-shade-can't-kill-it-with-a-stick groundcover:

This is another nice groundcover, for mostly-sunny or partly-shady areas (edited to add: ok, I found a tag: Veronica "Waterperry Blue")

Everyone with ANY degree of shade and reasonable organic content in soil ought to grow virginia bluebells (well, except way far south I guess):

And finally, an obscure plant that I highly recommend if you weed frequently or just like to bend over and 'pet' plants: Potentilla fragarioides. The leaves are strawberry-shaped but covered with a fine, plushy 'velvet', and are WONDERFUL to brush against. You have to fondle them before buying because there is considerable variation among plants. I weed around these potentillas more often than I really need to because it gives me an excuse to "pet" them. So sue me They also have really bright yellow flowers with (it doesn't show up well on the photo) a spot of orange towards the base of each petal. I keep reading that they're supposed to bloom in late spring and then sporadically thru the summer, but mine give up in mid June and that's it for the year <shrug>. First photo has my foot in it for scale

Pat

 

[simple life]

Pat,
Beautiful flowers! I was looking at potentilla myself, it was the orange flower variety. I saw it online but didn't want to mail order so I have been poking around the nurseries here for it.
I planted something like your groundcover but it was called white nancy and didn't do well in my rock garden.I had it in a shady spot but it just didn't happen. I am going to try it out back this year. I like the pink myself but it seems like everywhere I go I can only find the white.

 

[patandchickens]

I was looking at potentilla myself, it was the orange flower variety. I saw it online but didn't want to mail order so I have been poking around the nurseries here for it.

It was the shrub type of potentilla, though, I expect? They're far more common and entirely different. They are extremely useful sometimes -- flower all summer, and you can't kill 'em with a stick. The red and pink flowered ones will unfortunately fade to white in sun; dunno about the orange varieties though. The yellow ones hold their color just fine in sun or shade.

I planted something like your groundcover but it was called white nancy and didn't do well in my rock garden.I had it in a shady spot but it just didn't happen. I am going to try it out back this year. I like the pink myself but it seems like everywhere I go I can only find the white.

Yup, "white nancy" is one of the lamium cultivars - actually it's probably my favorite one (I am not really a big 'pink' person ). That's funny you can't find the pink; up here it is the other way around... I've only seen "white nancy" once but the pink and purple/pink ones are everywhere.

You should definitely try Lamium again... that is odd that it didn't do well for you. Was it in mostly-shade, and did you water it well for the first coupla months? Or - it occurs to me - mine sometimes sulk badly and lose all their main leaves if moved when they're not in the best shape, but as long as I hang in there and keep watering, they start to grow new little leaves from the axils of the old defunct ones and soon everything is fine. Definitely try again, maybe you just got a plant that was abused at the garden center

Have fun,

Pat

 

[aquarose]

Hi Patandchickens. I enjoyed seeing your random plant pics. I must get some lamium. I have so many places with dry shade. Yours is beautiful. Maybe I'll post some pics too.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi Pat! Those are just beautiful

I have a lot of dry shade here.
I've tried a couple of different lamiums, bluebells, some veronicas, several different perennial blue-ish geraniums, and that potentilla, too.
They just can't tolerate our heat and humidity even in deeper shade and fade out and die dead.

Yours are just lovely!
Thanks for sharing!

Lisa

 

[Tutter]

What lovely plantings, Pat!

About Virginia Bluebells, which are just about my favorite flower, but the plants are only out of dormancy for a very short time here; I have a puzzle for you.

Do you know what tree has flowers almost just like them? It's definitely a tree, and the one I remember was in Southern California. The flowers littered cars in no time flat when they fell.

I love your chicken tractor, btw!

Thanks for the treat!

 

[patandchickens]

Uh... Ceanothus? (sp?) Sorry, I am not a California kind of gal <g> and that is the only blue-flowered woody plant I can think of offhand. It's actually a shrub (sometimes a big shrub tho). California people need to answer this tho b/c now you have me curious to see this thing

Yeah, you have to plant ferns or hardy geraniums or whatever around bluebells to hide the mangy dying foliage, or just avert your eyes -- and the foliage doesn't last long here either (mine are in a rather dry site). I'd say they start to yellow out badly by mid-late June and are gone by mid July. Fine with me, the spring flowers make up for it

Those who have had trouble with Lamium etc in dry shade down South, it may indeed be just too darn hot for them but have you *tried* cutting the plants back when nights start to get hot? The idea is to whack off most of the vegetation, back to axillary buds that are starting to grow teeny new leaves, so that there is ever so much less topgrowth for the plants' roots to have to support. I find that many (not all) of my plants that have trouble with Hot Dry will do much better if I cut them back mildly to severely (depending on the type of plant). They don't droop so much, and they die less. Might be worth a try anyhow.

Pat

 

[Tutter]

No, that's not it. The flowers are shaped like, and colored like, Virginia Bluebells. I asked dh on size, because the one I remember from childhood seemed large to me, and he said they got 40' tall easily.

I was just hoping you'd come across something like it in your gardening wanderings.

Ferns we have; that's a good idea! Ours are already fading. They don't make it to July.

Thanks!

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Beautiful arrangements Pat, giving me tons of ideas of what to do with shady spots!

I'm especially curious about Potentilla fragarioides I need to go find some.

Regarding the tree that Tutter is thinking about I believe it's the Blue Jacaranda Jacaranda mimosifolia it's very abundant all over Southern California and they grow very tall and I guess the flowers do resemble Virginia Bluebells now that I think of them. The foliage of the tree is very beautiful as well.

 

[Tutter]

That's it! That's it!!!!!!!

You have no idea how frustrating it's been trying to figure out what it was! (I was 5 when we had it in our yard.)

I can tell you about all sorts of landscaping plants, native and exotic, but never knew what that tree was; and had moved by the time it seriously began driving me batty.

In fact, and this is irony, I have one of the sealed seed pods from one! I have quite a collection of "natural things", like interesting seed pods, sea shells etc. Somewhere I saw this seedpod, in the 70's I think, thought it was cool, and added it to my collection! lol!

Well, Oakland, I really do appreciate this. Now I just wish they grew here!

For anyone who would like to see it, this page shows the flowers on the ground, and the seedpods, as well as the tree.

Jacaranda :happy_flower :happy_flower