Since setting up at the new Paco Command Center in Southport, NC, we've been extremely busy putting in plants. The property has a thirty or forty yard strip of nothing on our side of a ridge of holly trees that runs along the back property line from east to west, and a similar swath of nothing running from the NE corner south to the street in front of the house. The respective strips are covered in pine straw, and vary from 7 feet to 12 feet wide. So, we're trying to fill up that space, although it may take a couple of years to do it. The upside is that it's all a kind of canvas on which we can create our own botanical vision. While I would have been delighted to fill up the space with various noxious shrubs and carnivorous plants, Mrs. Paco wisely insisted on more orthodox specimens, chosen for beauty and/or usefulness. We've planted blueberry bushes, a raspberry bush, gardenias, cannas of various striking colors, Arizona blanket flowers (which we were fortunate to discover on a nearby vacant lot), day lilies, zinnias, knockout roses, irises and many more species, too numerous to list all at once. Here are a few items that I find particularly pleasing.
Hardy white hibiscus. We brought some of these back from northern Virginia, and they are thriving in this heat.
I don't know that I've ever seen such intensely blue flowers as the ones on this blue delphinium butterfly plant.
We have a couple of stands of Texas star (also known as swamp hibiscus) which we grew from seeds collected from the ones we had back in Fairfax.
7 comments:
Beautiful! Makes me wish I had a green thumb. It's all I can do to keep the grass growing.
Jeff: It ain't easy. We've got rabbits and deer in the vicinity who love nothing better than to drop by Paco's All-U-Can-Eat Buffet. Fortunately, I've found some repellant that seems to keep them away.
And no surprise there, incidentally; it's the foulest stuff I've ever smelled in my life.
Nice flowers. I have stink bugs descend on my citrus every year, pick em off with my hand in a plastic bag. We have trees and flowering vines, jasmine wants to take over and strangle everything else so I get exercise fighting that.
I've heard that marigolds are good deer repellers. It's an option if you find the odor of the current repellant works on humans too.
I wish I had you and Mrs. Paco's talent/gift. My Granny had it, but alas, not my Mom or me.
By-the-way, what is that repellant? Does Southport have a zoo?
Lovely flowers. My gardening days are over, alas, but my daughter has taken up the mantle. She was told that scattering moth balls around will keep the critters away, so she's trying that. I used to use cayenne pepper and jalapeño juice spray.
Moth balls and peppers both work, too, from what I've read (in fact, the active ingredient in some repellents that I've seen is cayenne).
The stuff I use is heavy on rotten egg yolk; keeps everything away (including neighbors). No, seriously, the smell is very bad for a while, but then it tapers off as far as humans are concerned, although deer and rabbits can still detect it.
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