What are those gorgeous acid green leaves: OK, Marge, you're gonna really HATE this, but I actually DEADHEA

» LadyB - OK, Marge, you're gonna really HATE this, but I actually DEADHEA

OK, Marge, you're gonna really HATE this, but I actually DEADHEAD my columbines and have kept them in bloom regularly into July. One year I did it all the way through August but that was almost cruel, the poor thing was REALLY tired.......But you're right, there is a point (like with the Aquilegia canadensis that has popped up just EVERYWHERE) where a good, swift *whack* beats hours of schmeckering any day and accomplishes a lot more.

And where's Sonni? Me too! Me too! Me too! I made one of my infrequent pilgrimmages to Sprainbrook Nursery in Scarsdale (where I used to work a few hundred years ago) and one of the very first things I saw were "those gorgeous acid green leaves..." trailing from an enormous basket of mixed annuals. To say my pruning shears were beginning to itch was some kind of understatement. (I NEVER leave home without them...)

So I went for awhile like a kid in a LARGE candy shoppe buying my fall bulbs for Glynwood, chatted with friends of mine who are still there, and left my purchase behind so I could retrieve my car from the mechanic. When I returned, my purchase was all written up, the two whisper-pink streptocarpus plants were boxed with the bulbs and there was another paper bag. Hmmmmm. I peeked inside and it seems my friend Judy had indeed found some good reason to do a little trimming. There were two 'margarita' cuttings and one 'blackie'.

Sonni, thanks to your story of successfully rooting them in water they are holding court on my dining table in a lovely glass container. WHAT FUN!

And while we're on gorgeous, glorious plants, there was a new plant there that looked very much like a Mandevilla, but the flowers were thicker, a most delicious mauve-color, and the leaves were even a little different.(fewer horizontal ridges) It had QUITE the woody stem and QUITE the price tag ($40!). They seem to have no other name for it other than Mandevilla. Hmmmmmmmm. Anyone seen it?

Is horticulture just TOO MUCH FUN or what?

Lady B, Weeds and Wild Things Cold Spring, New York

-- posted by LadyB