Shall we just for a moment talk about flowers in the veg garden? Every day this week I’ve been working in the veg plot as plants raised in pots need to be planted out round about now. As usual this task takes at least three times as long as anticipated There’s always something to add to the list and this year it’s the removal of self seeded flowers. I hope that doesn’t shock you. Of course I won’t be taking them all out, just the tiny ones that are in the wrong place.
It’s safe to say that I love that so many of my plants hurl their progeny across the plot - who doesn’t love a free plant! But there comes a time when it can be too much of a good thing. I’m looking at you Feverfew and Linaria. (And, please, can we not mention forget-me-nots?)
The honeywort has been particularly upstanding this year. |
And then there’s Verbena bonariensis, foxgloves, honeywort... wonderful additions to any garden, especially as they provide a warm welcome for visiting pollinators. But why do the tall ones always seed into the side of the path? In a large garden the sight of tall flowers spilling over might have a certain je ne sais quoi appeal but in a small plot my experience has taught me otherwise.
I had already decided to give over a chunk of the plot to flowers, envisaging tall opium poppies, cosmos, rudbeckia and sunflowers. But, as we know, nature abhors a vacuum and the soil has now been populated by calendula, antirrhinums and even a rather beautiful white campanula. None of them sown by me. When the wind blows ...
But the star self seeder this year has been Leucanthemum vulgare, otherwise known as the Ox Eye daisy. Oh, how I wanted this plant when I saw it growing on the verges of country lanes! Imagine my delight at finding a tiny plant for sale locally! Roll forward a couple of years and it has become yet another of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ plants in my garden.
This one tiny plant has seeded its way under the quince tree, over the asparagus bed, along the path, between the strawberries, under the redcurrant bush and even snuggled between the capping stones of the low wall. Overkill? Certainly.
I’d already dug up the stragglers and several clumps before I read that this is an edible plant. Oops. Although, would I eat it? Probably not. Before flowering, the plant grows as a basal rosette of dark succulent leaves. If picked young, they are alleged to be a worthy addition to a salad, albeit not exactly leaping into the ‘delicious’ or ‘essential’ categories of salad creation.
I still have two large clumps under the quince tree. One has flopped, I suspect helped on its horizontal trajectory by fox cubs; its fate is still in the balance. They’re quite easy to dig up, being relatively shallow rooted but for today it has a reprieve, helped by this common carder bee. Until this sighting, I’d only seen garden flies on the flowers; in fact, I’d never noticed carder bees in the garden at all. I’ve since seen many more, easily recognisable by their stylish red fox fur jackets.
So will there still be Leucanthemum seedlings next year? Probably. And hopefully joined by those other self seeding daisies in the garden - Erigeron and chamomile.