June First

I was digging through the trash to find a plant tag from the church flowers, and found the ornamental grass tag for my pot at home. It is Blue Mohawk, juncus inflexus. The name does do justice, since the spikes stick straight up.

I went nursery-hopping the other day looking for replacement plants for the Mary Garden at St. John Cantius. The original plan  was to find some poppies to go with the two small plants which are already there. I was not successful in finding reds, so I decided to go with the pink Veronica which I found in sufficient quantity at Woods Farmer Seed and Nursery.  I went to plant them and noticed that Benjamin bunny had topped off one of my new oriental lilies. Time to add some used cat litter to the beds to see if it will be an effective deterrent.  

In the process of looking for the poppies I found toadflax, linaria purpurea. Toadflax has a history for me. I originally saw this plant at the botanical garden in St. Louis, Missouri while we were visiting Fr. Scott Daniels at St. Louis University several years ago. I thought it interesting and pretty, so wrote the plant name in my book. I could not find any information when I looked it up later, and have never seen it in a nursery. ( I bet I had typed it into the computer as two separate words.)  I was pleasantly surprised, then, to see it at the Plant Place at Cash-Wise East.. I purchased a pot to bring home. It appeared again the next day when we toured the Como Park Conservatory, much to my delight. The conservatory plants were huge in their warm habitat compared to mine, but I am still excited to be able to watch it grow.The tag does say it is zone 3 hardy.

A bit more grass sprouting around the yard. It is about the time for the seed which I purchased from Woods to make its appearance. Next year I will skip the Scott's and purchase all of my lawn seed at Woods, since their seed is not supposed to have all of the annual grass seed in the mix.