The Ur-blotanical

If Gertrude Jekyll were alive today, she’d be blogging like a maniac. Apart from her instructive writing on garden design and general horticulture, she loved the rabbit-hole digression on offbeat topics—she was the Ur-blogger on gardens.

I looked to her diatribe on the naming of plant colors when I was trying to describe the Pink Indigo. Jekyll informs me that mauve is French for mallow. Of course many mallows are not pink, so mauve as a color name is flawed from the get-go. Hence, her point that naming plant colors is futile. Especially since soil and nutrients can have an effect on leaf and blossom hue.
So the color of the Indigo eludes description… not pink, not lavender, the closest I can come is strawberry ice cream that has melted.
The best news to report is that the supposedly fussy fuschia is literally suffocated with buds!



Effusive Fuschia
















Oh, and the lightning bugs are back in full force

Hanging Gardens

Effusive Fuschia














It's nice that being identified as a gardener, friends and family give you garden gifts. After a year of missed connections, an old friend finally visited my house for the first time Thursday and came bearing a large hanging basket holding a fuschia plant. It's quite serendipitous, as I've had an empty bracket hanger on the front porch since I've moved in. Voila, empty hook problem solved.
This fuschia is something I would never had bought myself. The flowers look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, all exotic two-tone globes and pendants, drooping like chandelier earrings. It has no doubt been prepped in a greenhouse and brought to its peak lushness and bloom to tempt the unwitting shopper at a nursery. My internet search confirms that it will be a miracle if I can keep it alive. Apparently it may even need to come inside during the worst heat. If anyone has experience with this showstopper, please holla!




Evil Weed
This last week has seen the virulent return of my backyard's most obnoxious and widespread weed, a vine that never blooms, but has little green seeds. It strangles the plants it climbs on and cannot be killed or pulled up. Worse even than nutgrass. Annie, if you're stopping by, please i.d. this scourge so I can curse its name while I'm attacking it.
The geckos are all over the place; this dude was chilling on the cable with his little feet clasped together.