The Variegated Thumb

I have been reading a new book by Ken Druse called Planthropology: The Myths, Mysteries and Miracles of My Garden Favorites.  It’s a fun read if you’re a plant-aholic, like I am.  The book is a well-written hodge-podge of information and fascinating little stories about plants and how we, as humans, relate to them.  Tonight I was reading a section on medicinal plants and their potential lethality in large doses.  Ken writes that many plants with medicinal uses are fatal in large amounts.  Here’s a passage that I particularly enjoyed:

By now, you are probably thinking about never venturing out into the garden again.  It’s true that some plants make one sick if eaten, others cause a rash if touched, and several may even cause immediate and drastic results; I’ve heard, for example, that the first symptom of yew poisoning is death.

I thought that was an eloquent way of putting it.

This weekend the weather was beautiful.  Christie and I spent several hours outside, cleaning up our yard and preparing our side flowerbed to be a vegetable garden.  The flowerbed runs the length of the side of our house – about 2′ by 20′.  It has been filled with daylilies for years, and since the flowerbed is not full sun, the daylilies have not been blooming, only multiplying.  We dug up about a third of the daylilies last year and tackled about half this time around.  So now there is just a small remnant of daylilies on the other side of the Nandina bush.

The side flower (soon-to-be-vegetable) bed after having the daylilies removed

We have been transplanting the daylilies to a very sunny location at my wife’s parents’ business – the Thunderbird wedding chapel.

The Daylilies ready to be transplanted

Our vegetable gardening plans for this year consist of potatoes in this side bed with a self-pollinating kiwi vine growing up trellis mounted on the wall.  We are also going to plant tomatoes in pots so they can be moved to the sunniest locations.  And I think I will try growing broccoli in pots this year, too.  I might try making the plantings ornamental, with some flowers around the broccoli plants.

We bought our first seed potatoes, but decided not to plant them yet since there are more freezing nights in this week’s forecast.  The two potatoes I bought are Red La Soda and Red Norland.  I think I would like to buy a large white potato variety as well, but there weren’t any available this weekend.  I had planned on ordering my seed potatoes, but when I saw these in the store, I realized I could save a heck of a lot of money by buying them here.  I spent 93 cents on my two seed potatoes.

Red Morland and Red La Soda seed potatoes

I’ve got lots of cooking plans for my potatoes, so I hope they produce well for me.

I walked, I cycled, I drove – all over town this weekend.  Everywhere I went I saw trees and bushes covered in white, yellow, pink and purple blooms.

Here at my house there are quite a few sights to see.  In the front yard our Saucer Magnolia and Peach Tree are blooming.  The Saucer Magnolia looks about the same as last year, so I won’t post any new pictures.  The Peach tree has grown a lot since last year, though.

Flowering Peach tree - Prunus persica

I love the two different bloom colors on this one tree.  One is a solid magenta and the other is a very light pink with occasional streaks of magenta.

Peach blossoms

In the backyard, our quince and daffodils are still blooming.  Also, the Redbud trees have just started to open.  [I have plans to post more about our Oklahoma Redbuds next month - on Arbor Day.]

Last year I dug up several offshoots from our huge flowering quince bush and planted them along one of our fence lines, with the hope that someday we will have a solid pink hedge along that fence.  The transplanted offshoots are putting out new leaves, but no blooms this year.

Along the same fence I planted a short stem of a flowering Almond bush that my mother-in-law gave me from her bush that was damaged last year.  I was shocked this weekend to see that not only did it survive the transplant and the winter, the tiny stem is blooming!

Pee-Wee volunteered to pose next to the Almond bush (Prunus glandulosa) for size comparison. Note: Pee-Wee is tiny. Inside the tomato cage is a tinier bush. See the next image.

Buds on my tiny Flowering Almond bush - Prunus glandulosa

Apparently this little bush is happy, since it is putting out blooms at such as small state.  I’m looking forward to seeing this bush grow over the summer.

Stay tuned for more blooming updates.  I have some Redbud pictures and an unidentified white bush to show.

I don’t mean for this post to be an advertisement (for any particular magazine or plant vendor).  I’m just excited because I received my first issue of Fine Gardening today and already found something of infinite worth in it – a plant for my corner garden.  My wife got me the Fine Gardening subscription as a Valentine’s gift after I devoured a free issue that I received.  The first issue of my annual subscription arrived today.

Fine Gardening - April 2009

Just a couple pages into the magazine I was stopped dead in my tracks by a photograph of a flower unlike any I had seen before.  It had the common Daisy/Gallardia-type look to it, but the color… that was a different story.  Anything but ordinary, the center of the flower was a purplish blue.  The petals faded from almost black at the center to a glowing amber at the tips.

I quickly went to my computer and found the website of the grower – Bluestone Perennials.  But it took some time before I discovered the name of the flower that had caught my attention.  There are thousands of plants for sale on Bluestone’s website, but nothing was going to stop me from finding the gem I had seen in the magazine.  [Can you believe they didn't mention the name in the advertisement?  Maybe that is their way of getting you to spend time on their website and find other plants you want to buy.  That's actually a pretty good marketing scheme.  It worked on me.]

After seeing a flower with similar form and a dark center, like the one I had seen in the magazine, I was pretty sure that the plant was from the Rudbeckia genus.  Doing a search for Rudbeckias brought up all sorts of flowers that I wanted to plant – including the one for which I had been searching.

Rudbeckia hirta 'Moreno' - Gloriosa Daisy, Coneflower - courtesy of Bluestone Perennials.

I was very excited to see that not only is my zone listed in the plant’s description, my zone is in the middle of the pack.  That’s good news.  I didn’t want to be on the cusp of being able to keep these flowers.  I would like them to flourish.

My mom used to grow some cornflowers that were very pretty and came back each year from seed.  Apparently there are four related genera of plants that use the common name of coneflower, and who knows how many species for each of those genera.

I think the plants my mom grew were from the genus Echinacea and are generally much taller (around 3-4 feet in height).  On average, Rudbeckias tend to be 1-2 feet in height.  At least that is what I am seeing in my preliminary research.

The particular plant that I am interested in is a color cultivar of Rudbeckia hirta.  The common Rudbeckia hirta is known as the Black-eyed Susan – a well known, and rather ordinary-looking, yellow flower.  They are pretty, but I want something in my garden that pops – something that stands out – something that people have not seen before.

I have never seen any flower with this coloring before.  I’m hooked.  I’m already trying to figure out how many of these I can afford to purchase.  Here is another color variety that caught my eye:

Rudbeckia hirta 'Cherry Brandy' - Gloriosa Daisy, Coneflower - courtesy of Bluestone Perennials.

This variety is a little bit taller, reaching as much as 2 feet in height.  As I noted in my new year’s resolutions post, my corner garden needs some attention this year.  I would like to plant both of these in that garden, adding a splash of red and purple and a splash of orange and purple.

What do you think?

I am fond of plants from the Marantaceae family.  This family includes several genera that are common houseplants, including Calathea (peacock plants) and Maranta (prayer plants), as well as the less common Ctenanthe and Stromanthe.  There are actually about 30 genera in this family, but those 4 are the only ones with which I am familiar.

Generally, plants from this family are grown for their striking colors.  One of the features I enjoy is watching how all of the new leaves unfurl.  Also, mature leaves will retract whenever they dry out.  Marantas tend to fold in half (like praying hands), while Calatheas roll into a scroll.

Last week I added 3 new plants from this family to my collection.  I found a Calathea at Lowe’s for $5 and it was a color variety that I had never seen before.  I figured I should snatch it up in case I never saw it again.  You know how that goes.

Peacock plant - Calathea roseopicta 'Saturn'

When I found myself driving through north Oklahoma City last Tuesday, I decided I should probably stop by my favorite plant nursery, TLC Florist and Greenhouses.  As usual, they had a couple of great plants for a mere $2!  I bought 2 different Marantas.

Prayer plant - Maranta leuconeura

Marantas have a wonderful, delicate feel.  They are fairly sensitive to soil moisture levels.  I try to not let the soil ever dry out.

Red-veined Prayer plant - Maranta leuconeura erythroneuro

Back in January, I added 2 other plants to my Marantaceae collection.  One is Stromanthe sanguinea ‘Triostar’, which I found for a very reasonable price at Lowe’s.  It is a beautiful tri-colored plant that I saw in bloom at the Myriad Gardens last week.

Stromanthe sanguinea 'Triostar'

The other plant is a Ctenanthe, which I got at TLC Florist and Greenhouses.  In case you missed my post about TLC, you can see the post here and the photo album here.

Ctenanthe lubbersiana

I will probably post a more thorough guide to plants from the Marantaceae family in the next couple of months.