So, back to the emerging garden. There's actually tons more entries about the garden and if you're profoundly interested, they should all be under the Glue Gun Girl category. UPDATE (very many months later)! All garden posts have been put under the "Pomona Goddess of the Earth" category.
First up, the formerly feral Bird of Paradise, which I'm told hadn't bloomed in a decade. My professional adviser -- who shall go by the BGF Central codename of Shane because if you've seen that movie and met my adviser you'd understand how, spiritually, he's just like Preacher except that he's Mexican and a gardener -- is the one who told me what was going on. BoP leaves start as spikes before unfurling into spears. I couldn't figure out why this spike was growing very tall but not opening up until Shane explained it in that special way he has.
Eventually it looked like this:
As days passed a split opened along the top, oozing sap. The sap had no particular flavor. The thought didn't hit until later that I had no idea if BoP sap was poisonous or not. I still don't know. I'd ask Shane, but I don't want to get That Look again. One day I came out and the bloom had emerged:
Woo! I cannot emphasize how proud I am of Moiself. I think there might be another bloom stem coming up in this clump. So far none in the other one, but I'm keeping an eye out.
Now on to the fried egg poppy, which occupies the space formerly held captive by a sprawl of bougainvillea that took two weekends to hack back and dig up by the root. This is what it looked like when I put it in sometime last month:
I got it at a good discount at Yamaguchi because they were convinced it was ready to up and die due to having been over-watered in the nursery. I think they felt guilty selling me a tub of sticks. Hard to tell in this picture, but the few leaves were yellow and limp. Within a week of going in most of the leaves fell off. The sticks sat there, quietly sulking for a while before deciding to make a go of it. And this is what it looked like last week:
Woo! Look at all those healthy, green leaves! That's got to be a good sign. If I can keep it alive during winter it should bust out next season, and this section will be filled with flowers that look like food.
Anywho, this is the row of aloe which went in way back in the spring when this project began in earnest:
They are transplanted from one of my many pots of aloe, which are all descendants of my Redneck Mother Aloe. That plant started as three teeny stubs purchased from a Woolworth's in Central Florida. It now weighs about 45 pounds, and whenever I move getting that thing into the passenger seat is a matter of faith and will. One day, when I get my house, I'm going to plant the Redneck Mother Aloe in front of my writing gazebo that I shall build in the backyard of the place that will be my house. That ugly space behind? I'm going to turn that into an aloe wall. I figure I should do a test run with a small wall before tackling the big wall in the back. What's interesting (to me) about the row is that within two weeks or so the transplants turned a much deeper shade of green than they were originally. They're also growing spikes. I figure it's the compost and the freedom of not being in a pot.
Here are some of the test poppies. I wanted to see how I felt about them before cramming tons and tons of them between the BoPs for next season. I have seeds ready to go if I decide I like the way this looks.
Okay, technically the red and pink ones aren't poppies, but I liked them enough for the test run and they were of the needed size. This test run is about shape and sense of space more than technical accuracy. I just needed to plant enough to know if what I felt could work actually would. The pansies aren't poppies, either, obviously. Those will eventually be used to border the fried egg poppy, but I threw them in the ground now because I needed a stash of pansies for a batch of Wee Cakes I was baking for a friend.
I was gifted with a red tea hibiscus by Mr. In Memoriam, which he grew from seed. It's the one at the center bottom of the picture. It's hard to see in this shot, though.
Ignore the blue and purple flowers in that shot. They're just there to take up space until the sticky and the hibiscus come into their own. I am joyful to have that plant as I load up on dried hibiscus flowers when they're available at the markets so I can make hot & cold teas and glazes at any time, even during off season. I use a slightly modified Egyptian recipie. I am shame-faced to say I do tend to be selfish with my dried hibiscus, which is why I hope I can cultivate this little plant.
And that's enough blabbing about the garden for now.
