"I KNOW it's Cilantro!"

Have another "Guest Gardener" story of a friend of mine:

She's heard my tales of my insane cilantro and decided she would try yet again to grow it too.
So instead of one lonely little plant, she goes all out and buys eight! I mean, they really love cilantro!

And off it goes doing well, and she keeps cutting it back as I said to so it doesn't go to seed, but eventually it's inevitable and sure enough - four of the plants flower away ready to produce those promising little hopefully-reproducing seeds.

The other four, though...well...uh...

I was over for a cookout and she says, "Okay, you need to come down and look at my cilantro; half the plants got the little flowers like you said, but the other half got these huge leaves! Like bigger than I've ever seen on cilantro!"

Huh, ok, weird.

So we walk down the yard to her garden.

I get within 6 feet and go, "Uh...that's parsley"

"No it's not! It's cilantro!"

She's so adamant that I think maybe I'm wrong after all - I mean, I'm not exactly a veteran gardener myself, but I feel like herbs are the one thing I've actually done consistently well at and I cook with them a lot....question mark, question mark...

Pick a leaf. Sniff.

"It's parsley"

"No, it can't be!"

Taste the leaf.

"It's parsley"

"But I bought cilantro! They all said cilantro on the tags!"

Pick one of the few remaining cilantro leaves on the flowering plants next to the parsley. Instantly smell that oh-so-distinctive cilantro. Taste the leaf. "Yup"

After condolences and a reassurance that I've totally done that before and they are easy to mistake, etc., she's still so shocked and in disbelief.

I suggest we have my husband try it just in case I really am totally out of touch - he's always seemed to be good at identifying herbs.
She jumps on that - "Ok, I'm bringing him one of each leaf"

So back up to the party we walk and she hands him the 'mysterious' green leaf: "Ok, time to identify what herb this is!"

Poor guy, now that I've totally put him on the spot, sniffs it, tastes it, is in the middle of chewing and determining: "Well, I know it's not cilantro..."    "No!"     "...is this parsley?"

Me: "Yup"
Woman sitting nearby: "Yeah, I was thinking that leaf looked like Flat Italian Parsley"

Husband tastes cilantro leaf: "THAT's cilantro!"

My poor friend, so incredulous and dejected: "Well - I've made salsa with it, I've made lime cilantro rice and everyone loved it!"

Much laughter and telling her she found a new secret ingredient, etc. Don't think it consoled her.
I was surprised she didn't have a shovel in hand digging out the parsley bushes as we were leaving! Haha! She was so sad. I can relate. Oh, how I can relate!!

So I really hope her cilantro does reseed itself as I've told her it should!
Hopefully it's not just my freak zombie version that does so!



                   Public Service Announcement:

Pretty, Pretty Flowers

Goodness am I behind on the wildflower garden sharing (well, really, all gardens!)

I haven't posted since my gardenia exploded with more super fragrant blooms than I've ever seen ...

Then, of course it poured and wilted them all. But it sure was a gorgeous, wonderful smelling week or so out there!

The interesting little green fellow at the bottom was a another player in the "are you a weed or are you flowers?" game. I placed my bets on flowers aaaaaand.....


For once I win!!!

This lovely tower appears to be a type of Delphinium and I am so pleased with myself for leaving it in place!

Although it must have come from one of the wildflower seed variety packets I've sprinkled over the years, I don't remember seeing it in previous years. Sure is pretty!


The other gamble was this one who was rather weed-like, but making a nice little bush, so I left it...

And it did get these cute little yellow cone-flowers, however, they were small and didn't last long, so I think he's going in the yank category for next year.    Welp, I'm learning little by little!



And another fun surprise of these purple guys I had forgotten about.
I thought they'd all be the beautiful crimson flowers I found in pictures from last year, but here they are deep purple! (And actually, I have some in pink and kind of a peachy color I never remember seeing before either!)

That's the wonderful thing about having such a terrible brain: every year is brand new surprises because you can't remember what you had!!

Then these adorable, teeny blue flowers sneaked up. Well yay!

Uh oh....they better not be...

[get closer to inspect]

Yup, does appear to be the briars on the Chinese Forget-me-Nots that I tried so hard to purge from the garden due to the evils of weeding around briars!

 Oh well...I'm pulling up most before the briars get full-blown so hopefully they'll stay in something of a manageable fashion.



Aaaaaand.....drumroll....

The Clematis bloomed!

First the Jackmani went a few weeks ago...just two flowers this first year, but so pretty and giving high hopes for next year.
Both clematises are doing very well (as in...I haven't killed them yet!) and we've been having some high heat days again.

And in the peak of heat while it's climbing at around 5' high right now, the Earnest Markham just popped its first flower too!!

Once the daylilies came out it had some extra wonderful color...

A few weeks ago the Hydrangeas were still looking gorgeous and then even better with the daisies in bloom!!

The little red guys are the gorgeous crimson
flowers I've been hoping would come back!

 However, the biggest surprise of all was when I noticed on my foxglove...

Wait, what?!!

Ok, here's the thing, foxglove are biennial, right?

Which means you plant the seeds, the next year the greens come up and the year after that you get blossoms.

So I've been so pleased seeing the greens: it means that the beautiful stalks I had last year seeded themselves, took root and next year I'll have blossoms, right?!

Uh....or this year!!


I'm just amazed and so happy!! Perhaps these are specially bred ones to bloom every year...? Orrr...just another example of my little accidentals working out well when I had absolutely no part!

I actually have multiple stalks shooting out now! Incredible!


We were out of town for a few days and came back to find the Black-Eyed Susans starting to open!!


They're pretty spindly, but I figure it's their first year and boy were they wilted to almost nothing when we planted them during a heat wave in May. So the fact that they're still alive, let alone blooming has husband amazed. (oh ye of little faith.....in flowers, not in me! Little faith in me is totally founded!)

Even after heat and pouring rain, the hydrangea blooms had perked back up...and quite possibly put out new blossoms...?!

I'm just loving all the flowers lasting for quite awhile! (Well, the lilies seem to be really short.) It's just a beautiful medley of happiness! I typically think of perennials as pretty short-bloomed, but am finding some that are just delightful and long and varied. Maybe, just maybe I will create the wildflower border of my dreams!!


But a moment of silence:
When we got back from our trip, my beautiful pink Gaura was completely gone!
[tears and sadness and horror!!!]

I had wondered why it wasn't flowering nearly as much as past years, but somehow really missed the fact that it was starting to brown a little...?  The photo on the left was taken when it was looking pretty sad, but I figured it needed watering and maybe some fertilizer.

We got back and it was 100% brown...from the base to the tips. :-(

The only thing I can figure is that husband got a new type of insecticide to help with the mealybugs and this particular plant did NOT like that! So sad!
Everything else did fine with it, so I don't understand!

Aaaaaand of course genius over here forgot to take a picture of it all brown before cutting it down to its base yesterday. [sigh]
Really hoping it's ok underneath and will come back next year!!
(Instead of a topical one, this insecticide gets absorbed by the plant through the roots so that when the insects bite it, they...uh...expire. However, I'm guessing some plants obviously aren't ok with that arrangement and this is one of them...hope the roots are permanently damaged all the way down. :-( )


But, that accident aside, all in all I am very pleased with the progress!

So Much Color!!!

They Came Back!

After weeks of angst over the Elephant Ears, I'm very happy to report that they are back!

The large, original one starting peeking up the first few days of June. Phew!

I was quite sure the darker ones were done for; went out and checked almost every day and decided that I'd just have to go buy a new one to replace it when we got back from our weekend away.

But finally, in the second week of June, we got back from our trip and upon inspection, I found two tiny little stalks peeking about an inch or less above the dirt!

I gently tugged at one...it was a bug.

Not even joking. It was almost like a tiny praying mantis type of bug whose lower part of its body appeared to be emerging from some kind of itty bitty cocoon that was coming out of the ground. And I pulled it right out.
Well that surprised me and I figured I ruined its emergence to new life. Sorry!


The other stalk, though, did not pull out - it really was the start of an elephant ear.

Within days it unfurled itself...

And one by one they've been expanding and growing, so that's exciting.

So has the giant-leafed plant I don't know the name of...

The little baby mums bloomed and are still going strong 3 weeks later. They are so cute and are just the perfect burst of white in the middle of the garden.

I love looking out and seeing them from the deck or 2nd story windows:

Since these pictures some of them have started dying off; so sad.
I shall miss them.








The Astilbe and Caladium bulbs have popped:

My fuchsia "bush" is sadly tiny again; I'd hoped with a tree taken out next to it, it would get more sunlight and thrive (supposed to get up to 4' tall!) but alas.
Same as last year: about 8" tall with one little blossom!

The Phlox (tall green stalks in the center of the picture below) is so huge and should be blooming soon! Definitely will need to thin and possibly relocate in the fall: who knew they got so big?!


All in all, I just still think it's the pertiest garden around!

(One of these days I will get finishing on my cute little walkways!)

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