Dainty things tend to vanish in this garden. I forgot all about Oscularia deltoides for a while, until it bloomed. Dainty of flower, otherwise it is tough as nails.
One of the rose cuttings I managed to root via the stick-it-in-the-soil method has a dainty flower bud. Great! I'll be able to find out which rose it is. Labels? Labels are for wimps.
Rosa 'Vineyard Song' has been struggling but never quite vanishing in my garden for nearly a decade. I had it first in one, then another, then yet another terrible spot: bone-dry slopes, full shade, bone-dry slopes in full shade. Any normal rose would have died long ago. Overwhelmed with guilt, amazed at its survival, I finally dug it out, accidentally splitting it into two pieces. I gave them decent, not great spots last year, and now they actually look like plants, with dainty, penny-sized flowers. What survivors!
Dianella tasmanica variegata once had a much better spot, but it outgrew that and so was condemned to no-plant's land near the Brugmansia. I forget it has those dainty flowers. It's tough, too. In a bit too much sun it toasts, and it gets no water unless I remember to give it some. But there it is.
The Brugmansia I wacked down a couple of months ago has grown back into a lush mass of foliage so dense the flowers are hidden. Dainty, not. The clump of Dianella was so large I split it into two. The Dianella is there on either side of the Brug's base. The Agonis flexuosa 'After Dark' on the right grew three feet taller this winter due to all the rain. It is otherwise not irrigated. The Agonis has a daintiness to it, despite being a tree. It bloomed a bit for the first time this spring, with dainty white star-shaped flowers.
"Dainty" has another meaning besides "small and delicately pretty"; it is also "something good to eat; a delicacy". Which means the fresh figs I'm patiently waiting for, and wondering how I will protect them from birds, possums, and rats. I'm thinking a tube of hardware cloth over the branch, with perhaps a sock to close off each end. Certainly not lost or forgotten. I planted this tree last year, when it produced exactly one fig. At the precise moment of ripeness, the fig vanished. Hence my tube-of-hardware-cloth idea this year. Fresh figs are not to everyone's taste, but they are to mine.
Hiding from the birds:
Come to think of it, these plants are dainty in appearance, not in vigor. No wonder they have survived.
I feel your pain with the single fig that was picked by the wildlife at the perfect point of ripeness. Getting perfectly ripe fruit is the best reason us humans to have fruit trees, but so many of the critters seem to have the same likes. Good luck getting some figs this year!
ReplyDeleteI tried the tube of hardware cloth this year on the nectarine tree. I got four nectarines into it. The rats used it as a seat to eat one bite out of each of the remaining nectarines, and knocked the four inside off of the stem. Sigh. Revenge is sweet, though: yesterday I found a dead papa rat who had strangled himself in the bird netting usually used as tree climbing gear. That'll teach him.
ReplyDeleteI hope you got figs!