Moving Forward With Horticulture

Day 11: Over the years, I have allowed certain flowering plants to go to seed in my garden in the hopes that they would come up the following year. I've had some successes and some failures, the latter perhaps because my little avian friends enjoy them and pick them up as soon as I walk away. I have also saved seed from poppies, nigella, columbine and other florals to plant in the spring, again with success and failure running about 50-50. However, I have never collected seed from any edible to replant until now.

Although I had to train my taste buds to appreciate the flavour at first, cilantro is now one of my favourite seasonings and absolutely essential in such dishes as enchiladas and refried beans. For the past several years, I've grown it from seed in a pot so that I have fresh leaves available any time, and a few plants from this year's crop bolted and set seed. While cleaning out the garden yesterday, I gathered a handful of mature heads, brought them indoors and cleaned them of debris, and am now drying the seed for winter storage. Although I intend to use the leaves if I get a crop next spring, cilantro seeds give us the spice known as coriander, and is used extensively in Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine.

Viable Or Not?

Day 333: Almost every year, I save seeds from my black Hollyhocks, intending to plant them in the spring. The few times I have actually remembered to do so, I have had no luck in getting them to sprout. Theoretically, they should self-sow, but the area is masked by other vegetation (very little of it desirable), and I suspect the birds and mice get the seeds before they can reach the ground. That said, over the last few year, the number of stately plants seems to have increased somewhat, and certainly not through any intervention on my part. Not only that, but they seem to be sturdier, taller, and bloom over a longer season (there are still a few flowers on these). Perhaps some day, my vision of massed black Hollyhocks as a backdrop for the Barren Wasteland will come true. It's only been thirty years since I started the project.

Hybrid Seed

Day 265: Some of my readers may recall that in November 2019, I brought out my little paintbrush to tickle the flowers of a white Schlumbergera (Zygocactus) until they released pollen. I transferred the pollen to two receptive flowers on a yellow Schlumbergera and sat back to await results. By early December, the ovaries of the yellow plant had begun to swell. By April, they had begun to turn pink, indicating that they were ripening. One dropped about a month ago while still somewhat tender, so I let it lay until it had dried out thoroughly, and on July 1, I cracked it open. It contained roughly two dozen tiny black seeds which I planted in a mix of potting soil and sand.

Years ago, my husband conducted a similar experiment. As I recall, his craving for results caused him to harvest the pods before the seeds were mature; in any event, those he planted never germinated. In this case, I think the pod may have fallen prematurely despite the appearance of the seeds. The second pod is still attached to the plant.

Horticulture does not bring the instant gratification so desired by many. It is an exercise in patience; plants progressing through their cycles recognize only their own urgencies and cannot be rushed. Can you stand the suspense?

As Sown, So Reaped

Day 321 (see below for fire update): They think they're being naughty, those Steller's Jays, and won't let me catch a photo of them gobbling down sunflower seeds as fast as they can peck them free of the heads. However, I did not plant these. They did, and therefore I acknowledge that the harvest is theirs to reap.

Yesterday's rain knocked the 7-foot Cosmos jungle over, but with prudent forethought, I had staked the sunflowers. I was a little surprised they didn't topple, because the weight of a head this size is pretty substantial even with half of the seeds missing, but other than leaning a bit, the wrist-size stalk held the plants erect. Most of the plants are smaller and have multiple heads, but even so, they hold a decent supply of seeds and are sturdy enough to support a pair of Jays bent on having a hearty lunch simultaneously.

With some regrets, I pulled and discarded the Cosmos in order to clear my walkway. If the sunflowers had gone over, I'd have cut the heads and laid them out on the crow board. Maybe the Jays would have let me catch them in action if I'd spread the feast in one of their familiar haunts. Still, we all know that "forbidden" foods are the tastiest, and so far, I've been successful in keeping them off the grapes.

Hollyhocks In The Forecast

Day 303: When I moved into my home, one of the first plants I wanted to add to my garden was Hollyhocks, the single variety with the saucerlike, open-faced flowers. Seeds weren't easy to find. Seed companies offered doubles in many colors, but singles were a rarity. I would have been willing to settle for any shade (even pink!), but in a stroke of great good fortune, what I found was a black-flowered type. I bought a packet, planted them that first spring, and settled in to wait the two years Hollyhocks require before putting on their first blooms. That was over 25 years ago, and every year, my black Hollyhocks have delighted me, growing somewhat wild and unmanaged (if perhaps not as abundantly as I'd hoped) against the south wall of the house.

Hollyhocks remind me of my grandmother. It was against the wall of her house facing a small-town alley that I first encountered them. Like mine, they were allowed the freedom to do as they would, forming clusters here, a solitary plant there, their bright faces always turned to the sun. But equally, I enjoyed them in the autumn when I would collect their unusual seed pods, cracking off the brittle husks to reveal the ring of "coins" inside. I would try to open them so that the circle of seeds remained intact; not an easy task, and one at which I seldom succeeded. As I gathered these today for sowing next year, my mind swept back to those blithe afternoons and I realized something in hindsight: my clumsy harvesting efforts were no doubt why my grandmother had so many Hollyhocks at the back of her house.