General Discussion & Chat: Best/Worse/What did I learn today? Part 13, 1 by tangiegirl

tangiegirl wrote:
Morning : o) Slept in and catching up on mail, watering and laundry.

Gita...All of the tall, flowering plants are Cleome. I have them in purple, pink and white. Purple predominates, then white, then pink. They produce thousands of seedlings each year but are very easy to pull out. I love them and they have begun to ripen seed. I took some of the pink last week. They do as well in the shade as in the sun. They get about 3.5 -5' tall and I pinch or cut mine a couple of times in late spring/early summer. My kitchen is built into a bank so two of the windows look out at ground level. In the window well that faces west, there are three growing in the little concrete bunker formed as this window is about 2/3rds of the way below ground. They get NO sun (maybe ½ hr a day of light shade) and are growing in about ½” of “dirt”. They are about 18” tall and will flower soon. They bloom from mid-summer to frost. The ones in the picture below are growing in gravel over hard packed clay dirt not good enough to be called soil and out of the crevices of a stone wall where dirt has accumulated enough to support their roots. I planted one plant about eight years ago and all of these are from "her".

I am keeping the seeds labeled as to color this year, usually I just mix them but I want more of the pinks. Most of what you see in the picture below is purple and they are very dark as buds and then lighten to medium purple and then almost to white. They flower from the bottom of the stalk up higher and higher as the summer progresses. Lots of flowering side shoots, too.

If anyone would like seed, just ask, I have thousands. They grow fast and bloom quickly.

Judy….the large one is Bart, Barley, or Bar-Pear, as his registered name is “Shine On Bartlett Pear” The little buff spaniel is “Merry”. (There is a smaller one yet, Meeka...a seven pounder)

Off to the farm to pick up some sweet corn and anything else that catches my fancy. Be back later to chat


ETA: Just looked at the picture after I posted it. The first flowers on the right hand side of the picture? There is a purple to the forefront, directly behind it is a pink. Then move to the next clump on your left and now pink is in front of purple. The difference betwen the two is much more obvious in the garden than in pictures, at least the pictures I take ;o)

This message was edited Aug 17, 2007 1:15 PM