Speeding Down The Highway Of Life With The Stereo Blasting And The Top Down

…wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and a yellow bandana

Edit From 2019: The post that was here did not port over during the move from LiveJournal to WordPress, so I am replacing it with something more interesting.

Three Plants Every Garden Should Have

1: Butterfly Bush

These come in many colors and are much loved by bees and butterflies. They are very tough plants and will have a long blooming period, especially if you deadhead old blooms. Mine are very tall, like 10-12 feet. To make deadheading easier, you should keep them pruned to about 5-6 feet.

2: Lemon Verbena

Note that this is NOT regular verbena, which is a totally different plant. Lemon verbena is a woody shrub that has branches growing in a tangled and goofy way. The leaves smell very lemony and can be used to flavor things. My Lemon Verbena is about 12 years old and 7 feet tall. You can prune the hell out of them in the winter, after the leaves fall, but leave any branches with praying mantis egg cases. Mantids love laying their eggs in these shrubs.

3: Sedums

These are, without a doubt, the easiest plants to get started. Just put a leaf or a bit of plant in some soil, water it and keep it moist. In a few days it will have rooted and in a year you’ll have a spot maybe 2 feet across filled with it. It will spread over time or you can break off bits and spread it yourself. Like all succulents, it is pretty darned drought tolerant and will grow in almost any soil.