Sample Pots

I just down loaded my camera and found some great photos from June of sample pots inspired by the Hort. The Hort does a wonderful job of displaying a mother plant in full glory with smaller For Sales on the shelf below. The sample pots are never for sale, but are amazing beautiful.

I'm a definite sucker for the babies. That's how I ended up with my first orchid, the Green Hornet. I couldn't figure out why it didn't bloom for 7 years until I started reading up and realized orchids need to reach maturity first - typically 7 years! Then there was the CA native that I thought was dead and when I dumped it in the compost discovered it was dormant and the new shoots were just about to reach the soil surface. Quick re-pot!

I've never been much of a "pot" gardener, but after years of drooling over mother plants, I set to making my own.

This is a close up from the campanula sample pot. No, I don't know the exact species. There are many many hybrids and I'm too lazy to dig through the tags. A wonderful plant for the shade garden, providing ground cover and a profusion of blooms in spring, though mine kick some color all year long. I've got entire beds covered in the cute, sturdy little leaves. And it's not overly-aggressive, like mint.

This is from the lobelia pot, one of my favorites at the Hort, and what started the mono-species craze in my garden. I shamelessly copied, throwing 6 different colors in one bowl. Be careful to buy the trailing kind and not the clumpers. I made that mistake once; I thought I was going to cover the ground in front of the rhodie with a mat of lobelia, and instead ended up with 6 mini bushes. Doh! They look real nice hanging too.

Un-hybridized Lobelia is really bizarre; tall spears of big flowers, kind of like a cross between foxglove and delphinium, but in a beautiful claret shade. I bought some. It didn't make it.

And finally my newest addition. This gorgeous little mimulus is a testament to genetic engineering, but oh my it's a breath taker! Because this sort of mimulas is one of the riparian water hogs, as opposed to the drought resistant orange natives that cover our hills, I put a cheap self-watering reservoir in the pot when I planted. It does just fine in 100 degree weather without constant watering.

Yes, for those of you noticed, I haven't posted since last November; kind of shocking really. I had every intent, but first Mom's heart attack and then Kenai's passing kind of took the wind out of me...then there was the attack of the Alaskan Red Gopher.

Bella's technique for native gopher erradication is quite unique, though effective: She digs the tunnel up. The WHOLE tunnel. And everything around it in a 3 foot radius. And she's really, really fast. Made quite a mess of my beds. Doug got very creative with the bamboo fencing.

Other than that, she's absolutely perfect, and the gophers are gone.