Sunday, April 12, 2015

A 2015 Fairy House & Garden ~ Part 1

Happy Spring, Everyone! 

 In our part of the world, truly "Spring-y" days are few... 

 we seem to go from cool enough to need the heat on 

 to hot and humid (especially humid) enough to need the air-conditioning on...

Often within a matter of days of each other,

 and sometimes back and forth, frustratingly!

 We already had to turn the AC on a few days ago. 

 Even so, it really is still Spring, and I think it's high time 

to start a couple of new "Fairy/Faerie Houses & Gardens"

beginning with my vintage kettle garden as the setting...

 Here we go!
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"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems."

Rainer Maria Rilke ~ 1875-1926

The Fairy Garden has already "started" itself...thanks to perennial herbs!

What would I do without perennials, those "poems" the Earth knows by heart?

I wonder if I would have the incentive to go out and buy everything new,

every year. I just don't know. But when I see these hardy little plants valiantly

popping up year after year, always fuller and more abundant than the previous season,

I want to go straight to the garden center to find more to add to them;

always loving the discovery of new perennials, but also choosing colorful

annuals to add to the mix, as well.

So far, the kettle has been taken over by Lemon Balm (left, and at the base),

Chocolate Mint (almost everywhere else!), and Japanese Painted Ferns.


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I placed my little dried gourd (more on that later) in the kettle, just to see...

As much as I hate removing plants, some pruning is going to have to

happen here, if I'm to have little paths and a setting for the house!

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Making paths....

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So far I've purchased one Rosemary plant, the annual Lobelia (such a pretty blue!),

and a wonderful little (hopefully perennial, as it says) ground-cover,

 Leptinella, this particular one called "Platt's Black Brass Buttons"...

Doesn't it look for all the world like tiny Faerie ferns??

I'm going to plant these in the kettle and see how much space that leaves...

more on this before too long!


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In another part of my garden, a true Heirloom plant ~

this particular one is a division of the mother-plant brought home by my Grandpa,

a rural mail-carrier, in the 1930s.

(Isn't the fact that it is that old just amazing? This was the Depression, and

people didn't buy plants like we do now...almost all ornamentals were

"pass-along" plants...)

Grandpa had seen it blooming somewhere along his route,

possibly someone gave him a "start" of it...but since it is most often

found in woodland areas, it was probably just something he saw along

a fence-row or roadside ditch.

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Grandma called it "Spice Bush", for its clove-y, slightly carnation-y

fragrance, and for years that's what I called it as well, not being able

to properly identify it...then a couple of years ago with help from a nursery

that specializes in old-fashioned and woodland-type plants,

I finally found that it is actually "Clove Current".

Mystery solved!


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It's kind of sprawling and not the type of plant you would normally

look for to add beauty to a landscape (it's rather non-descript when not blooming,

something you might see growing along a creek-bank), but I love it.

(To read what the Missouri Botanical Garden says about it, click here.)

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More soon!

Love,

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