Apologies to Will Rogers this time

It is SPRING!  And I have proof.[image error]Please tilt your head.  I’m still working on formatting, obviously.  They were ‘upright’ in the original file, so I don’t know why the program wanted them on their sides.  Tete Tete daffodils,  Stella Magnolia and Cotton Candy Hellebore all signs of spring.  The hellebore is the most recent addition to the backyard.  The magnolia is now in its 3rd spring and pretty loaded with flowers for such a recent addition.I should have tried to get pictures of the robins also.  They are starting to mass for the journey north.  I have a holly outside the front door that is still loaded with berries, so maybe the robins aren’t quite ready to move on.  Usually they denude the holly of its berries as they get ready.   This is the time of year when the garden centers and nurseries exert their siren calls to plant lovers.  I once took a quiz that identifies the type of gardener you are.  Do you map out every inch of your garden with regimental precision, ruthlessly culling none producers, or the other extreme you buy every plant that appeals to you in hopes that some of them will survive?   There are some positions between these two poles, but I’ll confess I lean towards the latter.  What doesn’t grow becomes compose (expensive compost) in situ.  And I don’t learn as I’ll buy some things again…and again, in hopes of different results.  Why?

Here is where the apology comes in.  I live in Oklahoma, the land of Will Rogers who said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”   My motto is similar, but “I never met a plant I didn’t like.”

Okay, we can exempt poison ivy and from that statement and maybe dandelions too.  Oh, and definitely Japanese houttuynia cordata which my husband had growing in a confined space in his Japanese yard and then convinced me I should buy some for our Oklahoma backyard.  I’m trying to keep it confined, but that sucker suckers with underground runners and I’m always trying to pull it back.  I’d rather fight mint, which I also planted, but in a corner where all it can do is grown into the grass, where the lawn guys will get it.  Ha!   Should have done the same with the houttuynia.  But I digress…

So, while I’ve met VERY FEW plants I didn’t like, I also know there are a few I’ll never get to grown here.  Poinsettias will grown outside in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and sometime as far north as Corpus Christi.  Otherwise ‘treat them like a cut flowers’ (my mom’s expression).  And some of my childhood plants of Illinois/Wisconsin melt in the Oklahoma summers.

But hope springs eternal…every Spring.  I think the nurseries are counting on it.

What plants have you found to be garden ‘thugs’?   Which ones do you keep trying to grow against their climate zones?  Is there a plant you’ve met that you didn’t like?

I’ll leave you with pansies for ‘thought’.

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