Pennyroyal

Pennyroyal is in the mint family. It is a very pretty spring green color, very cheery. As you can see from the pictures, it makes a thick blanket of green. Mine is growing in partial shade. In Texas, an herb that normally should grow in full sun can grow very happily in partial shade because the sun is so brutal here. Exceptions to that rule are flowering herbs. Flowering herbs won't bloom profusely in partial shade.

Pennyroyal is a medicinal herb. Tea made from pennyroyal is an abortifascient. (It will cause a fetus to abort.) Very powerful stuff.

If you let pennyroyal creep out into your garden paths, it will emit a wonderfully minty smell when you walk over it and crunch it under your feet.

Aztec Sweet Herb

Aztec Sweet Herb is a perennial ground creeper. Mine is growing in a shady place, and it seems to be very happy. This plant is 1000 times sweeter than sugar, but the camphor content is so high that it cannot be used as an artifical sweetener. Use of this plant can be traced back to the times of the Aztecs as a treatment for coughs, colds, asthma, and bronchitis.

The leaves are tasty to chew, although the camphor flavor is certainly noticeable.

Artemesia in the Herb Garden

This is "Powis Castle' Artemesia. Artemesia is one of the most useful non-flowering plants to have in the garden due to its silver color. So pretty. Great in a pastel border or a night garden or a white garden. It is also pretty planted in dappled shade such as the location above. I have some growing in the Long Border and in the Infinity Garden.

Its use as a medicinal herb (Wormwood) has fallen out of favor. It was the key ingredient in the liquor absinthe. Wormwood is now known to have serious side effects.

Views of the New Fence

Views of the Garden

Pink zinnias, pink Autumn Sage, and Pink Muhly Grass.

The Infinity Garden is finally starting to perk up after a brutal summer. I lost a lot of my medicinal herbs, but next summer I'll give it another go.

Blue Fortune Agastache, red salvia, hollyhock seedlings, and Cassian Fountain Grass.

Cosmos, Pink Autumn Sage, grasses, and Pink Muhly.

What's Blooming Now - White Mist Flower 10/29/2011

The White Mist Flower is starting to open - it is a fall bloomer. It is a huge favorite of bees. This plant dies to the ground in the winter, and comes back from the roots. In the spring it can be cut back to the ground. It gets about 3 feet tall and wide.

A Weekend at the Farm 10/28-30/2011

Monarchs on Blue Mist Flower.

What a beautiful weekend! Perfect weather (but no rain). I came up on Friday morning by myself, and my husband joined me on Saturday. Friday I didn't do much. Watched reruns on TV and laid around. Had 5 yards of soil and 5 yards of mulch delivered.

• Decided the spinach seeds I had were no good because none of it sprouted. So I bought another package and planted it on Sunday.




• Weeded the Vegetable Garden. It looks good! Everything is healthy looking.




• Picked some green beans. Next week all of it will be ready to pick. Fall is a good time to plant green beans because they ripen more slowly. In the spring, one weekend they will be too thin to pick, but the next week they will be too big to eat. Not so with fall plantings.




• The garlic has all sprouted.




• The parsley seeds I sowed two weekends ago has sprouted.




• Spent Saturday building a big bed in the Star Garden. The star formation is officially gone. I added more flower bed onto the plan and it is no longer a star shape. Now that the yard is fenced I am expanding. My intention is that the entire area become garden with gravelled paths wandering throughout.




• Spend Sunday building a bigger bed adjacent to the roses that line the driveway.




• Planted 3 Dwarf Flowering Almond shrubs in the bed I built on Saturday. Prunus glandulosa "Rosea" I'm excited about these shrubs! They are unusual, no one has them that I have ever encountered. In between the shrubs I planted 16 Grand Primo daffodil bulbs.




• In the other bed I seeded yellow yarrow, purple coneflower, and lance leaf coreopsis. The purple and yellow will be pretty together.




• Adding those beds was a lot of work! One is about 35 feet and one is about 25 feet, both are about 4 feet wide. Work! Used the rest of my compost.




• Deadheaded the roses.




• Deadheaded the white butterfly bush.




• Sowed Baby Blue Eyes seeds on the ground under the cedars and in one of the beds that leads to the Rose Garden.


• Sowed McKana's Giant Columbine seeds in the same bed where I sowed the Baby Blue Eyes.


• Adjusted the sprinklers.


• Read the book my sister gave me for my birthday - The Founding Gardeners. It is a book about the gardening passions of the Founding Fathers. Fascinating.


• Sowed California Poppy seeds in the Orchard in the Blueberry bed and one of the Blackberry beds.


• Mulched the Debutante Camellia, the Desert Willow, the Eve's Necklace, some of the herbs in the Infinity Garden, and various plants in the Star Garden.


• Watered here and there.


• Enjoyed the weather. Glorious.