Flower Friday – Allium carinatum

Keeled garlic, witch’s garlic, Allium carinatum, is the last of the alliums to bloom in my garden. Native to much of Europe, it’s quite unobtrusive when the flower atop it’s nearly two foot (60 cm) stem is seen in isolation. But when allowed to self seed, it can form a quite fabulous drift of mauve […]

Friday Blues

You know those packets of free seeds you get sent sometimes by charities hoping you’ll reciprocate with a donation? Or from a breakfast cereal giveaway promoting itself as ‘green’ and wanting to spread ‘native’ wildflower seeds all around the country? The problem with the giveaways, of course, is that a plant may be native to […]

A Yellow Time of Year

My yard will be awash in yellow for the next few weeks, surpassing May, with its scores of daffodils, and even June, before its thousands of dandelions turn to fluff. It’s the season for goldenrod, now starting to bloom around the yard edges and in every unmowed ditch or corner, and more ostentatious yet, a […]

My Strawflower Shrub

Xerochrysum bracteatum, aka strawflowers, aren’t shrubs, of course, but the one I have growing in my kitchen garden right now sure thinks it is! I’ve started them from seed the past few years but this spring they didn’t make the cut, given my reduced indoor growing space due to new, very curious cats in the […]