Dr. Watson At Your Service

Who am I?

I ran across the beautiful specimen of a plant today and had to purchase it.  It was from a bush and tree nursery who occasionally have a smattering of ornamental plants.  This place is mainly to the trade so I wasn't immediately indignant that there wasn't a tag on it.

When a woman came up to ask me if she could help, I asked her what it was, and she said, point blank, Foxglove.

To which I said, "this cannot be foxglove."  I said it out loud too, which is highly unusual, being a relative newbie gardener, I try to keep el moutho firmly shut out in the real world so I do not look like an idiot.   For some reason, to you folks reading here, looking like an idiot is much less an obstacle.

Anyhow, she repeated, foxglove.   To which I said, "you cannot possibly convince me that this is foxglove.  First of all, it does not resemble it in the slightest, and second foxglove would be a crispy critter after a day in the full sun where it is currently sitting.  Honestly, foxgloves are 3 or 4 feet tall with bells and tall spike form.  Haven't you ever seen one?" To this she started digging around through all of the pots looking for an ID card and came up with one that said, "primrose."  Oh for heaven sake, I thought, it didn't look like primrose either.

  
I could have better accepted primrose as a possibility, yet by now I was dubious.  That this lady was seemingly convinced one minute it was foxglove and another minute it was primrose was highly suspect.   And in light of the fact that it didn't, on the face of it, resemble either, yet she seemed to be completely unaware of this fact...

I couldn't help myself.  I hauled off, gathered speed, and gave her the big fat hairy eyeball... so hairy one could reclassify it as a furry eyeball (but I would use a tag so people wouldn't be confused when choosing between hairy and furry eyeballs).

For some reason this woman was running around this nursery pretending to work here... this could be the only explanation.  As dear old Holmes would say, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever is remaining, however improbable, is the truth.

So having solved that mystery with swift efficiency, I brought the plant home and got out my smoking jacket and pipe and weird little hat (I forwent the cocaine... you have to draw the line somewhere with these rhetorical devices.)   I began studying the facts.  The flowers, in my vastly inferior experience, resemble something like those of torenia or even more like those of a thunburgia vine (blue sky flower/blackeyed susan vine).  The habit and leaves looked nothing like either, this has simple medium green leaves, opposite, appearing from the bottom through the mid point of the stem.  The stems are blackish, stiff and thin.  The flowers are a bluish purple, non waxy, relatively small and seem to pop up one after another on each sprig, but not all together.   Its about 12 inches high, with an obvious tendency for sprawliness, and was basking in full frontal Southern sun.  It also sat for 15 minutes in the parking lot locked in the car on the way home while I stopped by Jack's Comic Dogs for an Omega Dog and a diet coke.  The steamy 115 degree sauna inside the car had no effect.  Tropical, I presume?

Foxglove indeed.  Such treatment would have surely left an ordinary foxglove looking like a wet noodle with a dress on.  Armed with my trusty pipe and MacBook I preceded to type in all descriptors I could imagine might fit this plant.  I searched for look alike flowers.  I searched for full sun tropicals that might fit the color and description.  I searched for black stemmed flowers.  I even searched for South Carolina natives hoping maybe it actually came from around here.   Zip. Zilch. Nada.

So exasperated, I finally typed into Google: primrose foxglove.  And you're not going to believe this.  7 entries down, on the first page, the very first entry that was speaking of a unique plant (not a varietal name of foxglove, or foxgloves with primroses), I see a plant called Asystasia gangetica.   Also known as Ganges Primrose, Creeping Foxglove and they've added a third name to which the generally associated plant has zero in common: Chinese Violets. Sure enough, its my plant.  It's not genetically related whatsoever to foxglove (digitalis), primrose (primula or oenothera) or violets (viola), but it hasn't stopped the official plant naming committee from trying to confuse gardeners as often and as thoroughly as possible.  Honestly people, do we lack that much in the creativity department that we have to reuse names?

The moral of this story is that I am obviously no Sherlock, but instead a total Watson.  And one should probably not be throwing around hairy eyeballs no matter how much evidence is stacked against another person.   Sorry, lady at the nursery.  You were right, on both accounts, whether you knew it or not (this is still a mystery).  I guess you probably do work there after all.  Maybe.

But I will add myself one pat on the back.. it is indeed related to thunbergia, and it is tropical.   And now that I've researched it, looking at just the stalks and form, it does look a heck of a lot like some ruellias, to which it is also related.

The Sound And The Fury

For the past few weeks, as I'm sure a lot of you have either witnessed or heard on the news, the south has been getting some destructive storms... wind, hail, tornados.  A week ago, we were on a two day alert about the white cell that eventually laid waste to swath of about 4 states.  It didn't even rain here, even though our weather people were predicting 100% chance.  Not a drop.

That all changed yesterday as a mother nature came without warning, again making me realize that checking the weather is completely senseless (as telling me its hailing when its hailing is not all that useful, I've noticed).   They do not know and the illusion that they do can only serve to bite you in the ass.

The hail was one thing, mostly about bb sized, with some about dime sized and a few that looked like wadded up pieces of hubba bubba.  I noticed this because the hail was coming directly sideways into the west side of my house and were skidding across the upstairs porch.  You could see them doing high fives with each other and brushing the pollen off. Woohoo WILD RIDE MAN!

The bigger issue was the wind that was sending it horizontal.  First, I was scared for my windows as the smack that they were making against the panes sounded pretty brutal.  Then I looked outside and saw the whipping circular motions everything was making on the east side of my yard... it was an 'ut oh' moment.   And here I was thinking JUST that morning that it was nice that we were having our normal thunderstormy type weather this summer, which I felt sure was a great improvement over the past two years where it never rained all summer.

Even right before the storm, I was outside thinking, yeehaw, I don't have to water, because this thunderstorm is going to take care of it.  Well, and then some.  60 mph winds.  60.  On the rocks.

Stupid weather.  Why can't we just have normal?  NORMAL!!!  I am sick to death of coldest winters and hottest summers and droughts and destructo storms.

So the destruction included the toppling of two newly planted maple trees (fixable), the flattening of anything tall in the garden (pathetic and not sure how to fix), busted and now flowerless roses,  and the destruction of all the just emerged THIS WEEK foxglove.  Hate.  Seeing Red.  Flames, flames on the side of my face. Broken in half with most of the flowers unopened.

Also very angry at myself too as I had plenty of stakes sitting right there.... Well, I hope it at least took out a few squirrels.   And the rat that chewed through my cars window washer fluid hose... again.   GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Foxg-Love and Bloggy-Love

I got the best compliment a few hours ago from a neighbor and friend who was sharing a glass of wine out back in my garden. (Btw city gardens do have one single advantage over country and suburban gardens who have all the space, lack of noise, tons of sun, blah blah blah, everything everything.....we have neighbors all up and down the street who stop by because they are dying to see what is going on behind the white picket fence!  It kicks butt, I have a bottle of wine on the chill for just such occasions which happen about once a week.  They bring stuff too.  I just got a jar of homemade preserves out of this, last week I got a vase full of roses from a neighbor who has to be away the entire month of May and picked all the roses on the bush for me!)

Ok, back to the compliment.  (I have been drinking wine, as mentioned,  so plan on this being incredibly verbose with lots of parentheticals and no editing - as you suggested I do IG, eat your heart out).    She said, "Wow.  This garden looks like an English country garden!"  Cha-ching.  She can come back forever anytime she wants and camp in the backyard too!    I was so self-proud I was almost rendered speechless but due to the two point five glasses of wine before the comment I was, in actuality, rendered nothing of the sort.   I haven't shut up for a moment since.

After I got finished blabbing how it was nothing, and anyone could do it, and no I really haven't spent 40 hours a week working on this garden (lies, all of em), I honed in on what exactly she meant.   We actually have a style of garden here, outrageously known as "Charleston Style" which 90% of gardens around here adhere to.  First, it looks 'right' (semi formal) and second the things in them tend to be no brainers here and make for beautiful easy gardens.    People love Charleston gardens around here, myself included.  My front garden, if I should ever actually get the wild onions out, will eventually look like that too.   I've got tourists to impress, after all.    I cringe at what they must think now, but hey, my house is Carribean pink, that has to count for something.   Ps. for those of you who are curious what a double porch style house or the front garden looks like (flowergardengirl), its coming, its coming, I just have to actually plant something out front so I am not embarrassed on the internet here by the 800 wild onions, unlevel dirt, and ugly hedges.  Its one thing to talk about them, its another to display.

Okay, so I'm off topic again.  What she (my friend with the wine and jam) was talking about, really, that made my garden so English?  The Foxglove.    It is starting to bloom and it is majestic.    In my garden most of them get about 3 hours of sun, and would be happy to be in a lot less I'd say, judging by what they look like at 1pm.   But once the sun is off of them they look divine.  One of them, a Camelot Cream (the white one), isn't really totally bloomed yet and is already around 3.5 feet tall.  He is going to be a giant when fully bloomed.

So anyhow also now that I am typing typsy, and I have your attention and I continue to go off topic, cheers to you, all my loyal readers, my new readers, and of course, Jean, who adopted me when I was two days old.  I would bring you some jam and come and visit your garden too if I could.  Meredith, when I go camping this summer out that way,  I might just be lurking in your yard.... (not in a creepy way though, I'd ask first.)

Love, Jess (with an english country garden hehe, probably until July when it all goes into heat shock)

(next post will include no parentheticals I promise)