Pretty pictures: Purple and Blue

I've been taking tons of pictures lately, and then not doing much with them, blogularly speaking. Part of this is because I've been taking so many that the thought of trying to sort them all out makes me exhausted before I even start. Today, I'm going to at least try to get a few of them out of the way.

Hyacinthus orientalis NOID. In somebody's yard, here in town.

Glechoma hederacea. Ditto. I like this picture not because it's a great photo in and of itself, but because it's closeish to an accurate depiction of the weird luminous quality G. hederacea flowers have in certain lighting situations. Like all blue/purple things, they rarely photograph in anything close to accurate color, but I'll settle for them glowing slightly. The leaves are reddish, incidentally, because this photo was taken when it was still pretty cold at night, and Glechoma turns reddish in the cold. Like a lot of plants do.

Bacopa 'Colossal Blue.' Or possibly Sutera 'Colossal Blue.' I've lost track of which one is supposed to be current. This was at the ex-job, and whether or not I find it interesting depends mostly on what I'm comparing it to. So like, comparing it to the overall options available in the outdoor annual category, I think it kinda sucks. But comparing it to the other Bacopa/Sutera varieties I'm familiar with, all of which were white, it's interesting. A quick googling suggests that I should actually be even less impressed than I am, because this is far from the only lavender Bacopa in the world.

Lobelia erinus 'Laguna Sky Blue.' This was more impressive in person than in the photograph. I'm not sure what went wrong with the picture. I don't think I'm likely to try to grow Lobelias again, having had uniformly negative experiences with them, but there's no arguing that they're pretty.

Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost.' Also at the ex-job, and unfortunately a little bit past prime bloom, but nevertheless blue, so it fits, so here it is.

Delphinium 'Summer Skies Pacific Giant.' Delphinium cultivar names appear to be getting as ridiculous as those of orchids.

Viola sp. From our lawn. The plant's nothing special, but I thought this picture turned out remarkably well. Hence my remarking on it.

Viola sp. I don't actually remember where this one was taken. They're everywhere right now, you know.

Scilla siberica? An older photo, from someone's lawn. Really like this picture too.

Anchusa arvensis. Taken at a garden center that's not the ex-job. I hadn't actually heard of this before this year, and now that I've heard of it and seen it, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Random plant event: white-flowering Glechoma hederacea

I like Creeping Charlie. (Glechoma hederacea; also called ground ivy, gill-over-the-ground, hedgemaids, robin runaway, and alehoof; the botanical name is sometimes Glechoma hederaceum, as well, which is how I learned it originally, and which I'm still liable to revert to if I'm not paying attention.) I like it rather a lot, actually. I understand why some people wouldn't -- it disrupts the smooth, even green of a perfectly-manicured lawn, and for some reason, perfectly-manicured lawns of a single color are what you're supposed to have. Creeping Charlie makes them look scruffy, discolored, unkempt, whatever. And it's even worse in vegetable gardens or perennial gardens: it spreads. And spreads. And it's a noxious invasive that disrupts ecosystems and makes the baby Jesus cry. So fine. But I like it anyway.


This is almost certainly a childhood thing. When I was growing up (until the age of 11), we had a fairly large property, which was bordered by a row of walnut trees (probably Juglans nigra?) on the west and then had a giant weeping willow (Salix babylonica) immediately to the east of the walnuts. Between the walnuts and the willow, essentially no light reached the ground, and consequently, nothing much grew there -- except for Creeping Charlie. Which I didn't know was Glechoma at the time; I just knew it was really pretty when they all exploded in flowers all at once, that otherworldly luminous blue-purple that was dizzying to walk on.


Anyway. It's very noticeable right now, because they've all burst into flower within the last few weeks, and I've been trying to get a good photo of it for the same period, which means I've been looking for it in people's yards. And I happened on a batch of it in somebody's yard here in town (across the street from the Prunus cerasifera in yesterday's post, in fact) that had white flowers instead of blue-violet. Which I thought was interesting enough to share.


I've also discovered, on-line, that there are variegated versions of Creeping Charlie too, which are apparently just as invasive but slightly more decorative.

Amazingly, Glechoma is not on the Iowa list of noxious weeds (it is on Connecticut's -- no other state has bothered, nor the U.S. federal government): I find this kind of shocking, just because there were soooooo many people in the garden center when I worked there looking for something that would kill it. One of the first things I learned there, in fact, was where the Creeping Charlie killers were.

According to dkm65 at davesgarden.com, it's "irresponsible to plant or encourage" Glechoma, which is probably true. PlantGirl1982 has stronger feelings about it still, and uses lots of exclamation points to express them.¹ Jaimee cuts straight to "the most evil weed in the world."² [shrug] Probably.


I've wondered whether it would work as a houseplant. Probably, right? I mean, if it can grow everywhere else. A lot of your easier houseplants are invasive outdoors, in habitats similar to their native ones. Also some of the older houseplant books include it. I'm tempted to try. Would it need a cold, dry, dormant period like a lot of plants here do?

Hmmm. If nothing else, having some inside the house would mean I don't have to feel bad about pulling up any that's in the yard, and I don't think it counts as irresponsible if the only way it can leave the house is by me taking it out of the house.³ We'll see. Maybe. I'm serious about being tempted.

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¹ ("All you creeping charlie lovers are crazy! This is a noxious weed! It should not be used for anything! Who cares if it is a groundcover, there are a lot nicer plants available for that purpose! It is a disguisting weed that makes its way over from your neighbors yard and creeps into you lawn." [sic])
² Technically, Jaimee says it ties with Bermuda grass as most evil weed in the world. But tied for most evil is still pretty darn evil.
³ (Or tornado. I suppose it could get out if there were a tornado, too. But it's kind of silly to worry about it getting out, when there's so much already out there.)