Plants | #JusJoJan24 the 21st

Plants is the prompt for Sunday. Where should I start?

Just Jot It January is by Linda Hill (with help from her friends). You can jot something down for the prompt anywhere, any time, just post it on your blog before the end of the month (so it seems). You can read the full instructions here.

Plants – Jan 21st

This is linked back to J-Dub’s blog and to Linda’s post for the day.

When we did pastimes, I debated what to add about gardening. Then I thought, what about bird-watching? And I decided that these weren’t pastimes, or hobbies, but a way of life. It’s what I do.

Plants, though.

Some gardeners are plants people. It’s all about what specimen plant they have in their borders. My mum was a bit of a plants woman. She would say things like ‘the schizostylis hasn’t done very well this year,’ or ‘ the callicarpe is doing well.’ Eventually I got to know what these things were. I like schizostylis, and grew it a couple of gardens ago, but there’s no place for it here. Callicarpe is a nondescript shrub that has one glory – bright purple berries through the winter.

I was debating with myself whether the echeveria I have in shallow pots will survive the -8 degC nights we’ve had this week. I always bring them in for the winter, but usually I put them in the summerhouse with a wrapping of fleece. The big ones survived last year, but the small ones didn’t. Oh well. This year they are in the space between the kitchen door and the outside door. I suspect they will have been very cold. I’m not going to look at them till spring. If they don’t make it, well, I must have had them more than ten years, so they’ve done well.

I do have favourite plants, but most of them are quite ordinary, and usually are bee or butterfly magnets. Buddleia… I have several of those here, and usually end up propagating more when I prune it in late winter. Rudbeckia – also known as black-eyed Susan in some catalogues but there are several that are called that. This one is great for butterflies and bees, and then the goldfinches love the seedheads — as they do with anything from the thistle family, so I’m planning on a globe thistle (echinops) to put in a space in my front garden. The front needs more for butterflies.

In fact, if my garden needs more plants, they have to be wildlife attractors!