Saturday 7 July 2012

Gardening oops

Back in May, I noticed this plant popping up in my garden. I thought it might be a weed. A few questions here and there, and it was identified in a gardening forum as a wallflower.

Name the weeds

"Cool!" I thought. "It's not a weed after all, and it will look so pretty when it blooms!"

Only it never bloomed. I eventually mowed most of them down. They spread rapidly through the backyard.

In the last couple of days, there was a blooming.

Toadflax

"Cool!" I thought. "That's a butter'n'egg like in my grandmother's garden!" I felt moved and needed a moment, as I travelled back in time to my grandmother Anderson's flowers. How she always encouraged my enjoyment of her flowers on her farm. How she would send me out to gather wildflowers for baby and wedding showers that she hosted. I'd never connected my garden to her, but now it was plain to see another way in which she influenced me.

It was a very lovely moment, to have a reminder of her in my garden, without even planning it that way.

I should perhaps have not looked up this plant online. Because it turns out that it is Linaria vulgaris, aka yellow toadflax, aka ... a noxious weed as defied by the province of Alberta and the city of Calgary. Not prohibited ... but that explains why I have so many of them. Sigh.

0 comments:

Post a Comment