I actually remembered to take pictures of my garden on the right day. That’s worth celebrating in and of itself. Unfortunately my camera’s battery was dead so I had to use my iPhone to take the pictures.
I was trying to show how pretty the scented geranium flowers looked against the artimesia but the photo is a little blurry. I love this pot, it has so many different textures. I like the artimesia so much that I can’t wait to sow some Botanical Interests seeds I have. I just need to figure out where I’m going to use them.
This is a volunteer Angel’s Trumpet that showed up in a pot that I take care of, but isn’t technically mine. I liked it so much that I purchased some ‘Blackcurrant Swirl’ seeds that have double ruffled flowers and black foliage.
I was so pleased to see these chives blooming. I haven’t had much luck with happy chives at this apartment, and I’m not exactly sure what I did right with this plant. All the other times I’ve grown chives the’ve been floppy and have never flowered. I’ve been researching how to grow happy chives, so stay tuned for a future post on that.
Chocolate mint is also blooming away. I have a bunch of rooted cuttings from this plant, so if anyone in the So Cal area would like one, I’d be happy to give you a plant. I also have rooted cuttings from the scented geraniums that I need to find a home for. Contact me if you’re interested.
Here is the right side of my patio. The strawberry pot in front is one of my favorite ideas from this past season. I planted a whole bunch of different varieties of basil in the sides and have been able to grow a lot of basil in a relatively small space. Not to mention that I just put a rosemary plant in the top and can’t wait to start using that as well.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t believe Park Seeds is calling Daturas “Angel’s Trumpet.” Brugmansia goes by the common name of “Angel’s Trumpet” & Datura goes by “Devil’s Trumpet.”
Mr Brown Thumb–Interesting. I didn’t know about the controversy there. I always call it ‘Datura’ in real life, but here on the blog I usually try and use common names to make things more accessible to all levels of gardeners. Considering that datura is poisonous, it makes sense that it would be the Devil…
MrBT–Wikipedia seems to recognize both the angel and devil variations on the common name: Datura metel article in Wikipedia. Also, the USDA seems to call some of the species by the Angel’s Trumpet common name too: USDA report on Datura metel .
Fern, I’m not casting aspersions on you for using the common name. Lord knows I use them, mostly because I can’t remember (or spell) the Latin names.
Check out this entry for Datura
http://is.gd/3jJ44
In that one “Angel’s Trumpet” isn’t listed in the common names.
This one for Brugmansia
Lists “Angel’s Trumpet”
http://is.gd/3jJ5D
I know the common names get used interchangeably a lot on the net and by average folk like myself. But the people who grow Brugs on GardenWeb are sticklers for the common names and I learned from being corrected by them over and over and over again.
BTW, I went to a jail garden recently and they had Datura growing in the garden and I thought it was the craziest thing to grow around people who were in jail on drug charges, but that’s just me. :0)
MrBT–Oh no, I didn’t think you were casting any aspersions! The first Wiki article you linked to is for the general Datura genus. When you get to the specific page for Datura metel (the variety I purchased from Park) they do list “Angel’s Trumpet” as one of the common named. Wikipedia isn’t exactly the final word on the topic, but it does seem to show that there is at least some confusion on the official common name of some species of Datura. It’s worth noting that until recently many species of brugmansia were under the Datura genus, so things seem in flux within the scientific community as well.
Regarding growing Datura in the prison, from what I’ve read, the “high” gotten from eating parts of Datura plants is generally reported as not very pleasant. Though it can lead to death, so I would think that prison officials wouldn’t want it around in case a creative prisoner decides to poison someone else or use it to commit suicide.
This site has “reviews” of using Datura to get high: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml. All the reviews I read described a pretty bad trip and the desire not to go through it again. Smart folks, next time they could kill themselves.
Fern,
You brought up the thing about this issue that confuses me. For example we have Hemerocallis that we call Daylilies, right? We don’t call all the varieties of them by different names, they all remain daylilies.
Just one of the things I wonder about, or should I say-get confused by. Thanks for the thought provoking post.
MrBT–Some genera are more diverse than others. Also, it seems that the longer a plant has been cultivated by humans, the more common names it has. Especially if the plant has a really wide natural distribution, so people in France may have been calling it one thing, while people in Italy were calling it something completely different.