Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Lobelia: les liaisons dangereuses

Maybe I didn't know this?  Or I didn't care? Or I thought that I could make it all be different?  Oh, the stories that we tell ourselves!


The Great Blue Lobelia Lobelia siphilitica that I tucked several years ago into the crook of the rain garden has adapted marvelously well. The parent plant is healthy and, this time of year, heavy-blooming. All it seems to need is moist soil, a cool corner, and a measure of sun and shade.  For these favors, I have been generously repaid.  Thanks, right?

 
Well, gratitude has not yet tipped to grievance, but I can see gasping out a curse or two in the future as I am buried under this bounty of riches. Seedlings of various ages have colonized this bed.  At present, I am happy to see their blue spires inhabiting a difficult space that is otherwise pretty rough and tumble.  I am weeding out all the other interlopers in order to make room just for these privileged upstarts . . . and at the same time wondering what dangers I'll be facing by my lobelia infatuation.


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