Brought back a smallish blue-purple pea bush from Ashland Wi. about 35 yrs. ago. The older photo below is from way back in early June 2014. This perennial has popped up every year since. Close up near the bottom of this picture you might see the dreaded creeping ivy (among other names like ‘gill-over-the-ground’, etc.) How that ivy crept into our yard is a book, not for Medium eyes. I mean there should be a B-horror movie about this stuff.
(Below) My favorite pea plant variety is the pink and white so-called ‘Everlasting Pea’, I guess it’s called that by locals in Northern Wi. anywhere along lake Superior. Like the picture below they seem to be everywhere near the big lake next to the unkempt fields and roadsides, like this one. I sometimes attempt to grow them in southern Wi. but they don’t seem to take as well down south here. They spread like wild up north, beautiful. I think these plants absorb lots of daily morning dew since they seem everywhere near the big lake. (I’m sure that this pea plant has a mile-long Latin genus name, and I don’t care to know that).
A Christmas Cactus below, don’t care to know any exact name since who remembers that stuff unless you’ve been infected with some botanist genes. Not a very good picture and yeah we should take better care of this gem of a plant, it’s at least 50 years old and been owned by 3 families starting with Linda’s (aka. the boss) grandmother. They lived in northern New Jersey.
We do/have lots of perennials (iris, lily, beebalm, echinacea, daisies, and a zillion varieties of wild violets, (Wi. state wildflower, though some of the neighbors think we are pushing for dandelions) I also throw in lots of annual sets. Lately, I love the zinnias, they easily grow up to 5 ft. tall near the tops. Crazy big ornamentals, they could fool people like me into seeing dahlias. Also, always throw in marigold sets, love those things.
In other garden news, 2020, even among all the bad stuff, we had a bumper crop of tomatoes and cukes, had to give away bunches to the neighbors, which turned out nice since they gifted back lots of green onions which we didn’t grow that year.
Then there’s the neighborhood enemy as seen below, lurking Lepus, and yes there was a B-horror movie about these evil munchers!
In about a month or so we start on Spring cleanup and some other outdoor prep, which can easily be a month or longer job at our age.
