My Buds

I keep having to remind myself it's not Spring yet.

All kinds of stuff is budding in the garden, including my Ribes sanguineum ("wild currant"), which gets these long dangly flowers on it for just a few weeks.

But there's lots more. Stuff is budding everywhere I look.

In fact, yesterday morning I was pulling weeds, and I found a Collinsia heterophylla ("purple Chinese houses") growing in some flower pot that I'd cast off in a corner. Collinsia, in my experience, thrive on neglect and mistreatment. They are the enablers of the plant world.

Funny thing about this particular Collinsia is the seeds had apparently been dormant for four or five years. That's the last time I can remember seeing a Collinsia sprouting in that pot.

And golden poppies! Seems like I have more of those every year.

I resisted planting them because they're kind of cliché, but I figure the mow and blow guys will recognize them as a native plant and stop leaving brochures on the porch.

Right now, I think they look at the front yard and think "Does this guy ever need yard clean up and new sod! His lawn looks like a wildflower meadow!"

Kurt "big daddy" True
22 march 2004