Sunday, July 01, 2007

Sunday in the Garden

Something odd had been growing in one of the flower beds. If it was a weed, it was one I'd not met before. So I let it keep it growing and planted golden coleus all around it. This week, tiny bright bursts of blue appeared on the tips of the plant's stems.

Lifting up the sturdy stems, I noticed that the plant was spreading, and sending down roots at intermittent junctions. The plant was surrounding the coleus and looked like it could eventually smother them.

Time to find out what this plant is. It is easy to find pictures of plants when you are able to type in the name into a Google search. But how do you find a plant when all you have is a photograph? By typing in blue wildflower, I eventually found a match to my mystery weed. It is called the Asiatic Dayflower and is a member of the spiderwort family. The flowers only last one day.

Evidently the flower is considered more of a nuisance than something to show off in one's garden. It is known to spread eagerly once it has established itself. Yikes! I decided to sacrifice the flowering weed by tossing it into the compost box.

The rest of the garden looks fabulous. We've had three lovely days of glorious gardening weather. Check out the lettuce -- I've been feasting on it every day.

Lots of flowers on the tomato plants, and at least four growing larger every day green tomatoes.








This weekend I built up the bean pole structure and added some twine to the snow pea supports. Looks like more rain is due this coming week with not so high temps.


Finally, I have succeeded in growing gorgeous zinnias. Seems like every time I try, they get some kind of blight or are eaten up by hungry bugs. (No pesticides are used in Village Green's garden!) One thing I did different this year was to get the zinnias into the ground as soon as I got them home. In years past, the zinnias would sit too long in their six packs, and once they started to droop they never really got their full strength back. This year, they are tall and full of festive blooms. Nothing like a zinnia to set a happy mood in the flower bed!




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The pretty blue flower is a virgina dayflower. I don't know it's scientific name.