I've given the milkweed patch in my garden a few years to start attracting swarms of monarch butterflies, and because this is common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) which spreads from its roots...
This is one of the times of the year when the invasion is most apparent here in Missouri, at least in the St. Louis area.
This past Christmas we received a nice gift of some scented candles. I'm not a candle fanatic like some people, but I really do love some of these "flavors" -- and I have to call them "flavors" because they're usually so strong they fill my entire head.
When overwintering plants, I often try experiments. Take cuttings instead of overwintering the whole plant, keep some plants dormant, others actively growing. The idea is to reduce the amount of work and/or storage space required to get these not cold-hardy plants through the winter.
I've been writing about little problems that I've been fixing lately. Today I have another problem to show you, but I admit I don't have a solution to this one.
There are things I forget every year in the garden. Late winter is when I usually notice them: things I should have done last year, plants I've forgotten about.
A couple of months ago I posted that I was going to dig up the dozens of 'Moudry' fountain grass seedlings that have been peppering the lawn in this area for the last two or three years. Because of the summer's drought I didn't mow very often, allowing the ever-present seedlings to mature a bit.
Last year one of the new plants I tried was plumeria. I bought a couple of cuttings (which looked like fat sticks), planted them in pots and waited. They eventually woke up and formed nice little plants.
Today I'm going to talk about mistakes. One mistake in particular. One that I've made before, and swore I wouldn't repeat. Then I repeated it last year. It's a mistake rooted in laziness, or at least a strong lack of desire, and it involves an ornamental grass that you may have some experience with: Chasmanthium latifolium. This plant has so many different common names that I never know how to talk to people about it: "Northern sea oats", "Indian wood oats", "wild oats", "river oats" and several more regional variations. "Northern sea oats" is what it was called when I got it, and that's the name I used for a few years until I read that it doesn't grow anywhere near any sea, and is found instead in woody areas. So "Indian wood oats" sounds like the best candidate for now.
Part of the reason I have this blog is so I can remember things that I've done in the garden, both the good and the bad. Late winter is a time of much dreaming, planning, and optimism in my garden, and it's easy to forget about some of the problems from last year. I'm writing today as a reminder to myself.
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