Thursday, 6 February 2014
Gran's Garden
I remember when I was a little girl, my great gran used to have a massive garden. It was your typical "grandma's garden", a mish-mash of what ever will grow that looks pretty. There was no rhyme or reason to it all. It was by no means an exceptional garden, except for the fact that is crystallized in my memory that I used to love it. Im sure its where my love of gardens came from. I would spend hours playing amongst it all and I used to love picking the assorted flowers that grew there. These are a flower that I know my gran grew, African Daisys. They are terrible for cut flowers as they curl up and wilt very quickly, but to a 5 year old girl they were quite the novelty. They are incredibly hardy plants and grow quite happily on very little water when they are established. They get a bit manky after a year or 2, so best to pull them out when they get too big and they usually self seed so you just start the process over again. There are a multitude of cultivars of them now. Some have played with the colour, so you get various shades of white, pink and purpley pink. Others have played with the flower shape, so you get the double blooms (petals in the center) like you see above, or you can have a pin wheel look with the petals curled inwards onto themselves (looking kind of like a wagon wheel), or you can have just the plain old fashioned variety which is just a plain daisy flower. These plants are very rewarding for very little effort, they are great at attracting butterflies an will brighten up most corners of your garden. I hope you will love them too, give them a burl, I dare you.
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