One of the neat things about a garden is discovering the unexpected. Germinating a seed that becomes something altogether different than what was pictured on the label. Planting a perennial that comes in a 10 cm pot only to have it, three months later, tower to more than a metre, totally shading everything around it. Planting Vinca minor – on purpose, because the pictures of the flowers were so pretty. Ugh! Or, Cross pollinating your own Hemerocallis to discover a entirely new shade of pink. Often these surprises don’t appear until the end of the growing season – such as a few of my Six today.
1 – This Chrysanthemum, pictured above and here. It started life in a small pot, given me after Christmas by a friend departing for warmer winter climes. It was bedazzled with sparkling…things…and looked very embarrassed and frankly, more than half dead. I nurtured it through winter, pinching the lone surviving stem several times to encourage multi-branching, then planted it out in May. A hollyhock seed decided to germinate right in front of it and, as hollyhocks do, grew very large basal leaves, almost totally obscuring the small Chrysanthemum. Then, lo and behold, earlier this week, I spotted a couple very large white flowers peeking out from under the hollyhock leaves! (Doesn’t this sound like a children’s story?) I’m hoping for a delayed hard frost so that all these other buds, on other stems, will have a chance to open also.
2 – Another surprise has been how this German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) has come back to life after I cut it way back after it bloomed this summer. A friend said I should have harvested it to dry and make tea, but I didn’t do the research so don’t know if it’s the flower, the leaves or the root that needs to be dried.
3 – You can see the chamomile is growing next to Nasturtiums. I know I had Nasturtiums just three or four weeks ago but hey, can you ever have too many Nasturtiums? Especially when they provide a very pleasant surprise for me this year. I planted seeds, they sprouted and grew, a lot, then one day they were gone. All that was left was a sea of stalks, denuded of leaf or flower. Like a mini forest of dead things. I cut back the stalks but left the roots, and a funny thing happened. They grew again! Tiny leaves appeared, then larger ones, then flowers that, to my eye, are even more vibrant (and tastier) than the first batch. Alas – this patch must soon go, frost or no, since I need to dig up the Calla lily bulbs I have coming up amidst them. If I don’t get the bulbs now I’ll not remember where they are.
4 – Veering out of the kitchen garden I found another surprise – this tall stalk with a few pretty yellow dandelion-like flowers on top. I remembered reading abut a similar flower found also unexpectedly, in a fellow SOSer’s garden last week (See this post from One Man and His Garden Trowel). He thought it was a sow thistle and, when I looked it up, I believe that’s what this is as well. A weed! Gasp!
5 -Even further afield is this ornamental grass. I chopped this chunk out of the ground in early spring (literally – chopped with a sharp spade as the roots are so tough and dense) and transplanted it to a spot I can see from the dining room window. The parent plant grows to about two metres but, surprising to me, this offshoot hasn’t surpassed 60 cm. The transplant shock, I imagine, or not enough water its first year. Nonetheless, I really like how the late afternoon sun encouraged the soft yellow, autumnal glow on the grass blades.
6 – Finally, what may be my final Colchicum shot of the year. Nothing surprising or unexpected here. I call this photo ‘Fallen Flowers.’
That’s it for me this week. Hope y’all have a swell weekend in your gardens! If you’d like to see more of these Six On Saturday collections, from gardens around the world, check out The Propagator’s site!
Your ornamental grass at # 5 looks like imperata but less red than mine… Nevertheless, it’s very pretty just like your mix nasturtium / calla lilies
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Thanks! I’m trying to be better about documenting what I plant and where…..
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I always keep the label of unknown plants or varieties in particular. Once I’ve tweeted or added it to my blog, I can throw it away. Big data helps my memory with hashtags…
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Can you ever have too many photos of nasturtiums? Such cheery plants.
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I agree…and since I pulled them all out yesterday (to make room for tulip planting) I have something to remember….
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The ornamental grass looks lovely in that light. When I’ve seen posh chamomile teabags they seem to have the seedheads in them. My weed/wildflower has been removed!
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Mine has been removed as well! Sow thistle seeds..
Shudder….
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l love your first paragraph, so interesting to see what comes up in the garden. And you have made me decide to plant some Nasturtiums. So pretty.
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Re Nasturtiums – mission accomplished! 😄😄
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LOL, I ‘ll post mine in mid winter!
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🙂
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I love nasturtiums too – those ones are lovely.
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Thank you!
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Peek a boo indeed! The chrysanthemum is a really pretty flower and at this time of year, the colours in your nasturtiums are a welcome sight (also love the grass).
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I’m sad to report the nasturtiums re no more…had to pull them retrieve the calla lilies, plus wanted to plant tulips…o well, next year!
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I am sorry I missed all these. You got some nice ones here, sort of unrefined and rustic. Nasturtiums are still one of my all time favorites, but neighbors do not agree.
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Neighbours…..you have power?
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Where I lived in town, the neighbors thought that nasturtiums were too cheap and common. I have gotten unpleasant comments about nasturtiums in my downtown planter box too. I grew them anyway.
The electricity was disconnected only twice here, and not for very long. One outage was about a day. The second was about a day and a half. I only got electricity a few months ago.
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I think comments like that would make me want to grow even more!
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Well, when neighbors were actually civil, I commonly grew vegetables, fruits and flowers that neighbors lacked space for. It is how we used to be in the Santa Clara Valley, as the region become more suburban, and the urban. Nowadays, they just don’t stop complaining.
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