Showing posts tagged Jardin des Plantes
Three Yellows Ever hear the 500 year-old English phrase “Taking Coal to Newcastle”? Well, I’ve done it again. In October of 2007 I gathered the seeds of this Alyssum argenteum, known as Italian alyssum, in the ‘Jardin des Plantes’ of Paris. I love the silver leaves, but am not thrilled when this, as many other silver plants in May, gets covered with a puff of insignificant yellow flowers, the colour equivalent of pissing all over my silver and white tapestry of vegetation… Solution? Whip out my sexy Japanese scissors and hack their heads off. The ground-covering silver bush looks better clipped back a bit, anyway. View high resolution

Three Yellows

Ever hear the 500 year-old English phrase “Taking Coal to Newcastle”? Well, I’ve done it again. In October of 2007 I gathered the seeds of this Alyssum argenteum, known as Italian alyssum, in the ‘Jardin des Plantes’ of Paris. I love the silver leaves, but am not thrilled when this, as many other silver plants in May, gets covered with a puff of insignificant yellow flowers, the colour equivalent of pissing all over my silver and white tapestry of vegetation…

Solution? Whip out my sexy Japanese scissors and hack their heads off. The ground-covering silver bush looks better clipped back a bit, anyway.

Juncus inflexus - Blue arrow grass Grown from seeds gathered in the Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden of Paris.  I love that place! View high resolution

Juncus inflexus - Blue arrow grass

Grown from seeds gathered in the Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden of Paris.  I love that place!

I had to go back through some photos from Spain to find the name of some seeds that I lifted from the Jardìn Botànical de Madrid… and here it is, yes, now I remember… Juncus acutus. I had good luck with some similar seeds (Juncus inflexus) ”acquired” a few years ago from the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, so I thought I’d give these cousins from down south a try… I think this species is taller and stiffer than J.inflexus, but I’m not sure… I read somewhere that they can actually hurt children who fall into them, so I’m hoping they get enormous and evil! View high resolution

I had to go back through some photos from Spain to find the name of some seeds that I lifted from the Jardìn Botànical de Madrid… and here it is, yes, now I remember… Juncus acutus. I had good luck with some similar seeds (Juncus inflexus) ”acquired” a few years ago from the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, so I thought I’d give these cousins from down south a try… I think this species is taller and stiffer than J.inflexus, but I’m not sure… I read somewhere that they can actually hurt children who fall into them, so I’m hoping they get enormous and evil!