Then came the rains and laden with water the blooms and leaves collapsed in a heap. The few remaining limbs struggled along but the roots had pried loose and it was doomed.
So I made some cuttings, rooted them and replanted the Pink Queen’s clone and lo, it started to grow.
And now, here it is again. The Pink Queen rules!
On a day when the wind is perfect
the sail just needs to open
and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day.
Rumi
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13 comments:
Outside ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
Rumi
Looks as tall and as thick as the original. How many years old was that one?
Beautiful! Any tricks to rooting your mallow successfully? I'm trying to do the same -- just took cuttings and stuck them in potting mix in old 6-pks.
I hope they take because the mother plant looks to be a chance mutation, different than the species.
Beautiful!! And I always like messages with hope in them!
Did you amend the sand at all and it looks like you have a drip system (or maybe that is a hose)? People who scoff at waterwise plants as being ugly sure need to look again!
Christina, Alon: I make cuttings, dip the end in Rootone (or some such) then stick it in some pots. If I do 4 - 6 cuttings, may end up with 1-2 plants. This particular plant was about 20 years old? And was particularly hardy and had lots of flowers, so I think its cuttings were also hardy. I ended up with quite a few cuttings, put three out in the front yard plus this one. Mallows are pretty weedy, weak, shrubby, soft, so they apparently root from cuttings easily.
Toonces: The raised boxes are loaded with mulch and soil amendments. I dump piles of mulch on them every year. (Los Osos Valley Nursery has mushroom compost for sale. That's fabulous stuff) But the rest of the yard is pure sand. The boxes are on drip lines. There are really beautiful water-wise plants. Lavender, for one. Love the stuff.
Thank you for the tips.
And 20 yrs! That's really old for a mallow.
I think my next gardening investment is mushroom compost. Good tip!
I have found some in the protea family to be pretty cool too, very waterwise. And succulents of course, but the snails seem to thrive on them. Ugh.
I used to work in a home and garden store that had a bin with killer snails. If you didn't want to use snail poison (that would be me!) you could buy killer snails. Don't imagine that would be legal here, ha-ha!
I guess that I should have added that the killer snails killed the regular snails by latching onto the shell, boring through it and eating the contents. Snail tartare sort of.
Pretty sure the killer snails are illegal, certainly in this county. I collect snails and toss 'em out into the street for the crows. Yum.
I hadn't thought of the crow thing!! I really just can't stand to squish them, they are sort of cute, and super disgusting on one's shoe, so this would be a perfect solution. Plenty o' crows in these parts and they all need to be fed! (I really like crows I should add. A crow portrait by a local artist lives in our house.)
New crow book out: Gift of the Crow by Mazluff & Angell. Gonna order it.
If you haven't seen the PBS documentary "A Murder of Crows," you should. An absolutely captivating look at these incredibly smart and resourceful birds. Just amazing.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1621910826
Yes, I saw it. It's wonderful.
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