Occasional journal posts in between gardening or working
Entries by MinxterBloom (134)
Sweet pea plans
I am not sure I can overwinter a blooming sweet pea. However, I may try this. Besides, I can enjoy now, the scent and purple pink blooms. I can even install a small grow light, if need be. I will buy the Cupani strain of Lathyrus odoratus. Annie's Annuals in Richmond, CA must be propagation-heaven. Here is her Cupani pea image: lovely, lovely, and the scent is not to be believed. I smelled this particular sweet pea in the Mission Santa Clara garden, circa 1980. Father Warren grew this on a warm wall in February, in the very old and enclosed and off-limits rose garden adjacent to the mission church.
This garden is atop -- yes, on top -- of the original cemetary for this Franciscan-turned-Jesuit mission.
I
I hope I can pull this off. Sweet peas are heavy feeders, requiring lots of bunny poo, in a tea at planting and then as a side dressing.
This is the goal of my BPPP -- Bunny Poo Pea Plan.
And a snip of poem about sweet peas by John Keats:
From "Endymion," read the rest of the excerpt here.
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
And, another Keats snip, again, about sweet peas:
| Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight: | |
| With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, | |
| And taper fingers catching at all things, | |
| To bind them all about with tiny rings. |
This is from "I Stood Tip-Toe." Read it here at Bartleby.
MinxterBloom
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Bunny scat
is worth it's weight in gold. I snagged a custom batch to be delivered on Monday. After some research about overwintering a sweet pea vine inside, I shall reveal the bunny poo-pea plan (BPPP). Details, with prices and pictures and linkification soon. Be there. In the meantime, reread Richard Adam's Watership Down.
Tupelo tree
I am worried about the black gum or sour wood or Tupelo tree in the back yard. The leaves look thin this year. I will watch the scarlet leave drop this fall, as another check on the tree's pulse.
Nyssa sylvatica: 
The Purple Finch ; Tupelo Arbor &c. [Tupelo Tree]. British naturalist Mark Catesby (1683-1749) collected specimens and made paintings of diverse flora and fauna he encountered on two extended trips to America between 1712 and 1726. 13”x19.5” inches. Digital reproduction of the original in the collections of the Library of Virginia.
Korean mums
;)
Very special but unassumingly so. Brenda S. gave me a clump several years ago. "You will love them: hardy, soft peach star-petals, relaxed form, drought-hardy. Trust me." She is right.
More daisy than mum, this plant blooms for nearly two months. It looks nothing like classic mums: those mufti tuffets that look best in a pot on the porch. I have one now that is two shades of pale raspberry with straw centers. The light color stands out against the red brick. A white Cape house can foil those deep russets and purpled burgundies.
Back to the Koreans: these mums may not be Chrysanthemums at all. But the jury is still out on this. I think I have Sheffield or Sheffield Pink. These mums are luminous in the dark afternoons of rain.
Dendranthema rubellum
Austerity?
Seeds in a time of austerity? Perhaps this is the year to commit to these lovely -- and no fail -- flowers.
- Zinnia madness, especially "Purple Prince" and "Violet Queen" foiled by the knave "Green with Envy"
- Mix of fluted Cosmos in madder, magenta, pink, and blush tones
- Marvel of Peru featuring sweet wafting flutes of many colors, truly Mirabilis jalapa
- Cleome, aka spider-piant, in purple, cerise, and cool, cool white
To James Fenton's Website -- Poetry, too!- Shall we have a quote?
- Shall we be recommended a flower packet or two? Yes, let us
First, here is Ian McEwan on Fenton: There is a strong case to be made that James Fenton is the finest poet writing in English. His technical virtuosity is beyond doubt; his long experience as war correspondent, journalist and traveller has given him an unmatched range of subject matter - war and revolution, the dementia of collective passions, reflections on fate, and love - he has written some of the most beautiful love poems of our times. He is a poet of great emotional depth and wisdom. Increasingly, his work has a strong connection with song. He also has a taste for light verse of exquisite charm and humour. He is a modern master.
Now, Fenton on the sudden and startling beauty of the lowly snap dragon: Beneath the topiary shapes, the flowerbeds were planted with bedding plants, and I was there - it seemed to me - on just the right day of the year, since the single-colour plantings were creating plain geometrical shapes of purple, mauve and lemon-yellow. The pale yellow antirrhinums (a variety called Liberty Classic Yellow) were all at exactly the same height, which gave an unearthly effect. (From The Guardian, 9/10/2006, "Flower Power.")
Renee's Seeds (images)