I like to put a big pot with an elephant ear plant by my backdoor. Not sure why, just always have. I “underplant” it with some impatiens. Don’t know why, I just do it ever year.
I’m a plant toucher. Drives some people nuts but when I walk by plants outside or in a garden center, I’m always reaching out to touch them. I touch this elephant ear nearly every time I go in or out of the house. Actually I “pat” it like its a dog or something.
I was out this evening patting the elephant ear and checking on the vegetable garden. We’ve gotten plenty of rain this past week and I can see in the garden that the plants are all taking advantage of it. My corn is waist high (very touchable!) and I like the way the leaves look right now, so I think I’m doing all right on the fertilizer.
The bush green beans seem to have recovered from the brief period of time when they were a “bunny’s all you can eat buffet” and are starting to bloom. I’ll have to watch and be ready to do something to keep the bunnies from eating the beans themselves as they form, and I’ll have to figure out some non-chemical way to ward off the Mexican bean beetles before they declare the bean patch as the place to host a fiesta. Any one have any new ideas?
I’ve gotten plenty of blooms on my tomatoes, but not much in the way of fruit set. That could be due to all the rain, we shall see. I am also starting to see little zucchini squash forming so I should soon have some to harvest. Of course I’ll have too much to harvest all at once, and I’ll have some that ‘get away from me’ and grow to the size of my arm before I harvest them, but that’s all part of the fun of zucchini, isn’t it? I’m not sure if this year I will just leave excess zucchini in unlocked cars at the local mall or on my neighbors’ doorsteps. We’ll see how many I harvest at once.
The flowers in the garden are also starting to bloom. I planted mostly zinnias and some marigolds, which are the ones starting to bloom. I also have some sunflowers, but they have a few feet to grow before they start flowering. (I originally wrote “before they think of flowering, but then I remembered that plants don’t “think”, they just “do”, right?)
I’m a plant toucher, too. As such, I find it very difficult to garden with gloves on. Whenever I look at a plant, I also “look” at it with my hands. I love textures as much as colors, scents, and shapes…and in some plants, tastes.
Touching a plant, and inviting my customer to do so, has resulted in sales of all sorts of different plants. Usually it involves fragrance, like Coleonema, Lavender, Thyme, or Corsican mint, which if you don’t rub the leaves, you wont release the fragrance.
One plant that is strictly a feel good plant is Lambs ears, which for some reason seems to yell “feel me”.