Monday. Meh.

Today's post is co-hosted by my other blog, WilliamsWrite.

It's Monday, and for whatever reason, words aren't coming to me as easily as usual. Don't know why. I mean, it's not as if there aren't a lot of forgotten plants and places around here to document.

Poke salad, no Annie.
(LaGrange, Georgia—29 April 2012)

That's one of the downsides to blogging: Even if I don't feel very inspired, I still have to post new content on a regular basis. Of course, as I tell my students, there's nothing to get you inspired like writing when you're not inspired. Sounds counterintuitive, but it really works. Just as with plumbing work, you have to flush all the junk from the pipes before the clean water can flow. Write a little while, get the junk and fragmented thoughts out of your brain, and the good ideas begin to flow onto the page. Trust me.

Currently, I'm working on a couple of exciting projects—one involves a historic home, and the other involves highways. For fear of jinxing myself, I won't divulge more. But if these ideas turn out, they'll make for great reading and interesting photos.

I don't know why I took a photo of the poke salad (phytolacca americana) leaves above. I also don't know why I thought it would go with this post. But I stumbled upon it while looking for interesting Nearly Wordless Wednesday pictures, and then started humming "Poke Salad Annie." My late father sang that song all the time. Okay, so he knew only part of the first verse and the chorus, but he still sang it.



Heed the Alabama Extension Service's warning, though, and don't carry any poke salad home in a tote sack.

Spring perfume on the porch

Trachelospermum jasminoides 'Madison' (Confederate jasmine) blooms on my porch - 13 April 2012

Today's post is jointly hosted on my other blog, WilliamsWrite.

It's semi-evergreen, makes a great groundcover for difficult-to-mow areas, offers hundreds of gorgeously-scented flowers every spring, and needs little care. Trachelospermum jasminoides may not be a real jasmine, but that's okay with me.

This cultivar's full name is Trachelospermum jasminoides 'Madison.' It's native to southeast Asia, but this variety (so the story goes) got its name when a botanist traveling with General Sherman's army discovered the plant growing beside one of Madison, Georgia's, famously beautiful old homes. 

Don't be afraid to prune T. jasminoides if it gets out of line. It's a woody vine and responds well to pruning. When it decided to grow into my native azaleas, I grabbed the gardening shears and gave it a nice trim. It didn't seem to notice, or care, and went right on growing.

A mulch around the roots does help in the heat of summer, though. You may want to give it a little extra moisture by way of a once-weekly soaker hose treatment when the weather is especially hot and dry. T. jasminoides grows best in Zones 8-10, so if your winter low temps regularly fall below 20 degrees, it probably won't do well. Here in LaGrange, Georgia, on the border between Zones 7-B and 8, I have to protect it from occasional cold snaps and ice storms. The fragrant spring blooms are well worth the trouble, though.

The last daffodil of spring

Or so it would seem, anyway. Narcissus poeticus always blooms in very late spring, just when most of us have forgotten daffodils and moved on to the charms of irises and azaleas.

Poet's daffodil, narcissus poeticus, blooms in very late spring
(my yard, LaGrange, Georgia—27 March 2012)

Saturday Beauty: 4/7/12

The duck-billed platypus of the gardening world

The Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium) holds on to its gorgeous fall leaves and grape-like fruits until well into spring. This one stands about four feet tall in front of the Comfort Inn, in Warner Robins, Georgia.

As I checked out of the hotel and prepared to head home after my overnight business trip, I couldn't help snapping a photo of the matte bluish-gray "grapes"—they look as if they're covered in frost—and how they jump out against the warm reds, oranges, golds, and light greens of the foliage.

Warner Robins, Georgia—10 April 2010

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 4/4/12

Every bloom is multi-colored, much like its biblical namesake

Joseph's Coat climbing rose in my yard
LaGrange, Georgia—April 2010

That "grape soda" smell means wisteria

It's springtime in the Deep South, and the air smells like grape soda. Not name-brand grape soda, but the cheapest-of-all-cheap-store-brands grape soda. Or maybe it smells more like year-old grape bubble gum, the wonky kind that nobody will even shoplift off the clearance rack at Big Lots.

Whatever sticky grape confection it smells like, that smell means wisteria, also known as the Other Vine That Ate the South. Say what you will about wisteria, but I always look forward to its glorious Pointillist creations draping the trees.

Greens, purples, lavenders, smokes...wisteria's got 'em all.
(LaGrange, Georgia—21 March 2012)

Tomato dreams

On Tuesday—the same day I blogged about the Tomat-O-Match—I ordered my tomato seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds. This Maine-based family operation offers an amazing selection of hard-to-find heirloom vegetable, herb, and flower seeds at great prices. Their mission is to help preserve old-fashioned plant varieties, and they've been doing it for nearly 40 years. Staffers test every seed before listing it in the catalog, and those catalog descriptions are often written with wry humor. All these qualities make me happy to do business with Pinetree.

After much hemming and hawing, and a consultation or 12 with the Tomat-O-Match, I settled on four old-fashioned tomatoes.

• Brandywine
• Cherokee Purple
• Druzba
• Mortgage Lifter

Why these? They're all good for fresh eating or canning, and are indeterminate (they grow and bear all season long instead of stopping in mid-summer). My gardening friends have recommended these varieties or similar ones; these tomatoes hold up pretty well to our punishing summers. They bear heavily all summer long, and sometimes until frost, putting out as many fruits as a gardener can eat. And they produce interesting-looking tomatoes in varying shades of red, maroon, pink, and purple.

My mother bought a pack of seedling pots, but I have the feeling we're going to need more than a dozen. Thank goodness I have a PotMaker and a few months' back issues of the Market Bulletin.

My seeds should arrive by the end of next week. Mom has already set aside an area in her laundry room for our seedlings and a grow light. Last month, she and my stepfather tilled a half-truckload of composted leaves into the dormant garden soil. At least 30 days lie between potting up and setting out; at least 90 lie between now and the first harvest. It will be a while yet—and the wait is worth all the trouble.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of luscious, home-grown heirloom tomatoes.

Tiny. Early. Purple. Heirloom.

These muscari aren't much bigger than the bee at center-right.
(6 Mar 2010 - Denver, Colorado)

I've been seeing Muscari in plant catalogs for years. They're called grape hyacinths because—well, you can see why. Their upside-down-bunch-of-grapes form lends unexpected texture to the early spring garden.

Purple and blue are also unexpected flower colors. When I think about it, I can name many more plants boasting red, orange, yellow, pink, or white flowers. But there don't seem to be as many purple or blue flowers in the garden. Hmm...grape hyacinths, dephinium, Virginia bluebells, Texas bluebonnets, wisteria, hydrangeas, a couple asters, smoke bush, maybe a purple Buddleia, lavender, periwinkle. Oh, and I think I've seen a light-lavender foxglove somewhere before.

Lord knows I'll come up with more later. Still, I could spend nearly all day naming non-blue-or-purple flowering plants. Warmer colors naturally attract pollinators. That makes sense in nature. In the garden, though, blue and purple are eye-catching because we don't expect them.

Speaking of things we don't expect—even though I'd seen Muscari dozens of times before in photos, I didn't realize how small they are. In the photo above, the individual flowers are half the size of the bee who's dropped by for a snack. Even Barbie would look huge next to them. Now I understand why catalogs sell them in orders of 100 or more: they're tiny! You have to plant at least a hundred to get the full "river of blue in my garden" effect.

Grape hyacinths are native to the Caucasus, in countries such as Turkey and Armenia (hence Muscari armeniacum). Muscari neglectum was introduced to Western gardens around 1568, according to Brent & Becky's Bulbs. That's definitely heirloom. And as with many older plant varieties, it doesn't need constant care. After all, its name ends in neglectum.

Daffodils up front?

Truck hauling chicken manure north on U.S. Highway 27, Carroll County
(trust me, it was chicken poop)

On a drizzly February morning, this roadside in southern Carroll County doesn't look special. The six-inch-high stubble tells me the D.O.T. mowed this shoulder in early fall; the privet and wild blackberry brambles haven't had time to break dormancy.

But the D.O.T. mows roadsides all over the state. So what?