Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Jewel Among Flowers

My long term followers may recall my ongoing plot to take over part of my side yard with jewelweed. Two years ago, I dug up 3 plants from my mom's house, where they are plentiful, and I watered and cared for them. I didn't think they'd make it, as every day they wilted as though they'd been transplanted to the Sarah, rather than a shady patch of yard near where they started. But they survived and flowered and popped their seeds all over and last year I had many jewelweeds emerge and go through their entire life cycle with no help from me. This spring, the seedlings were so plentiful and had spread so far that some had to be annihilated due to their pathway location.

However, the long hot and dry spell was not good for my jewelweeds. I had pretty much taken to ignoring them, and their whole part of the yard, which is overgrown but generally takes care of itself well enough. When I noticed that many of the jewelweeds weren't faring well, it was already too late for many of them. (The fern area right next to the jewelweed area suffered a similar fate, for the first time in 8 years...) Anyhow, a few of them did survive to flower, but not that many. Not as many as last year. So we'll see how things go. Meanwhile, they are still going strong at my mom's house, where the flower sketched above from many angles grew.

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