Question for the Hive Mind: Trifolium pratense

There's nothing new going on here at the moment -- believe me, I tried to find something better than this to talk about¹ -- so I thought this might be a good moment to ask a question that's been rattling around in my head for a couple years instead.

Why do people not deliberately cultivate red clover (Trifolium pratense) in their gardens?

I mean, yeah, I get that it's weedy and would tend to take over, given enough time, but gardeners overlook that in other plants, so it doesn't seem like that would be enough to disqualify it. And rabbits like it, but again -- that doesn't stop anybody from growing lots of other stuff. And it has good points. The flowers are pleasant, and numerous,

and even mildly fragrant. Bees love them. They improve the nitrogen content of the soil. There's a medicinal use for them.² The plants quickly reach a mature height of about two feet tall and then stop getting taller, which seems to me like it should be a good quality for an outdoor plant.

So I'm just wondering. Last year, I let a couple grow in the Portulaca bed, and that seemed to work out fine for me,³ so I'm just wondering why nobody else does it. I assume there's a reason. Or several.

-

¹ There have been a few new first-time Anthurium blooms (0335 "Donna Fanuday," 0346 "Lois Carmen DiNominatre," 0360 "Heidi Gosique," 0373 "Shangela Laquifa Wadley," 0597 "Raven"), but Shangela is hideous, Donna, Lois, and Raven aren't fully opened up yet and have so far photographed terribly, and Heidi is basically a repeat of 0357 "Rhea Litré." I mean, I'll get to all of them eventually, I'm sure, but as a group they're kind of underwhelming. And in any case I'll have to sort through a bunch of photos first.
² I'm not generally that impressed by claims that a garden plant can be used medicinally, because I really kinda feel like people are better off not gambling with self-administering unproven chemicals they don't really understand, at an unknown dose, with no supervision by a medical professional, but some people consider it a point in a plant's favor if it's "useful" for something, so that seems like it should be a point in favor of deliberate cultivation.
³ Didn't this year, because they were getting so big so early that they threatened to shade out the reseeded Portulaca grandiflora before it even had a chance to germinate. And yes, that means I've had a lot of seedlings to pull up. But the Trifolium is a much easier weed problem to deal with than, say, dandelions, maple tree seedlings, Oxalis, lamb's quarters, or crabgrass. If not for the Portulaca, I would have been perfectly happy to let the clover have the bed this year.

Pretty pictures: Portulaca grandiflora

I am firmly convinced that Portulaca grandiflora is the best blooming annual of all time, period, full stop, and nothing you could do or say could ever convince me otherwise. So don't even try. And yes, I'm including Gazanias in that assessment. Gazanias wish they could be as cool as Portulaca.

I neglected to start them indoors, so the first blooms didn't appear until late June; this was the very first, on June 24, and includes a bonus fly of some kind:

There has been a satisfyingly large number of orange blooms:

I've caught a glimpse of a single (so far) green metallic bee again this year, unlike last year:

as well as a handful of other pollinators, mostly the tiny black bees from this post, though I didn't get any pictures of those.

We also have, for the first time, some Portulaca growing around the oak trees in the front yard (on purpose), which include this pink-on-pink speckled bloom:

I'm skipping the marigolds (Tagetes) this year, for a number of reasons.

The Tagetes crowded out the Portulaca by the end of the year, attracted lots of whiteflies, and although they bloomed constantly, I don't like the blooms as well. Granted, I've seen lots of tiny grasshoppers in the bed, which I don't know for sure that that's not related to the Portulacas.

Grasshoppers is the best explanation I have for what happened to this one, though I admit that I don't know for sure. . . .

The bloom colors are a lot more varied than Tagetes, if nothing else.

Oh, and yeah -- a few pictures up, that's a red clover (Trifolium pratense) in the bed with them. (One at the front on the right, and another in the back left corner.) It also gets big and sort of crowds out the Portulacas, and attracts pests (rabbits?), and the color doesn't really go with the Portulacas, but I've always kind of admired T. pratense, so when I saw a couple coming up at the beginning of the spring, I thought why not, what could it hurt, and let them grow. It's possible that I'll come to regret this, as I eventually regretted letting the Oenothera biennis stay, three years ago. But it's okay for now. The clover even turns out to be mildly fragrant, which I didn't realize. (One possible shortcoming of Portulaca is their lack of fragrance.)

In any case, I feel like I only have just so much energy to devote to outdoor plants, and this bed is a good size for me to keep weeded and stuff. Also Portulaca won't all collapse the first time it gets dry, it's happy to bloom continuously for about four or five months, and it self-sows even when I don't go to the trouble of gathering the seeds.

Though obviously I'm gonna gather the seeds.

In conclusion, Portulaca is a land of contrasts the best.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXV

Mostly greens this time around, but they're interesting greens, with fairly distinct textures. But first, an uncompensated product endorsement.

The husband and I finished watching The Wire last night. For those who don't know, The Wire is an HBO series that ran from 2002 to 2008, and it's about, among other things, the drug trade, police department, city government, prisons, and school system of Baltimore, MD. And it's the real Baltimore: filmed on location, with lots of actors who are actually from Baltimore.

It's also the only show I've seen lately that's genuinely suspenseful, the only show that sets up rules about what can and cannot happen in this world and then sticks to them (I'm looking at you, Caprica), the only show with characters who seem like they could be real people and change in ways that real people might change, and some really fascinating things to say about American society, the War on [Some People Who Use] Drugs, politics, being a police officer, redemption (as well as fucking up), and a ton of other stuff.

Except not all boring and shit, like that made it sound.

Also, the realism and occasional bleakness mean that they can make some amazingly funny jokes sometimes. Seriously. You'll die. People have called it "the greatest television series ever made," and meant it. (Dunno about that, but it's surely got to be in the running.)

The Wire is not for you if you blanch at strong language, including but not limited to slurs relating to race and sexual orientation. (Though if that's a problem, you probably stopped reading a couple paragraphs ago.) You're also not going to like it if you have a problem with occasional nudity, simulated sex, drug use, or graphic and frequent violence.

It's also often very sad. Bad people don't always get what's coming to them; good people either. Also it's frequently very hard to tell the difference: this is not a show where everybody's either good or bad and they all have color-coded hats on at all times so you know who is who. You'll be amazed at some of the people you'll eventually feel sorry for.

The Wire is also frequently hard to follow: like most shows, they'll tell you what you need to know, but unlike most shows, they won't keep telling you and telling you to make sure you get it. (Closed captioning helps, as does watching with someone else.) But paying close attention pays off. Also, do yourself a favor and start watching from the beginning of season 1: we were getting DVDs from the library, but we missed some episodes in season 1 because some people hadn't returned the relevant discs yet, which made our experience more confusing than it had to be.

Anyway. If you're looking for more specific things about what the show's about or what it's like, you can check the Wikipedia page for the show; the above is just what I like about it. If you've heard nice things before and thought, oh, I should check that out sometime, this is me letting you know that you really, really should.

Anyway. On to the leaves.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Rubus sp. Good leaf, but bad photo. With a lot of these, I was taping them to the light on Nina's terrarium and then taking pictures that way (It's easier to keep the leaf still when it's unable to move.), and this one apparently caught more of a shadow than I intended.

Plantago major. I'd been curious about what broadleaf plantain would look like by transmitted light for a while before I actually got around to doing it. It's one of my favorite weeds, going back to when I was a kid. The photo, obviously, was disappointing. These things happen.

Vitis sp. Surprisingly similar to the Rubus picture, just in a different color. Which I guess is kind of cool?

Trifolium pratense. My favorite picture from this set, for reasons I don't quite understand. I like the plant quite a bit, too, as far as that goes.

Begonia NOID, possibly 'Texas Coffee Star.' I've done this plant before, but this wound up being a slightly better picture than the previous one.

Aspidistra elatior. So far, this is working out much better for me than A. lurida ever did; it hasn't been that much time, and it's not growing very fast, or at all, but I'll still be ecstatic with the plant if it makes it through the winter. Wish me luck.

Musa x 'Cheeka.' Picture's pretty cool, but this was a really bad purchase. Although the plant is still alive, it's not happy: each new leaf is smaller than the one before, and it's gotten better-than-usual care, by my standards -- more light, more warmth, more fertilizer -- so it shouldn't be complaining the way it is. We won't be trying any Musa or Ensete species again. At least not unless something big changes around here.

Asclepias syriaca. Was not expecting the common milkweed to have so much going on, vein-wise.

Abutilon 'Bella Red,' petals. The color is wrong here; it's a lot less orange than this, really. I blame the camera.

Ficus elastica 'Tineke.' (ID uncertain; there are lots of variegated Ficus elastica varieties out there.) Also too orange. I don't know how many pictures of this species I've tried, but I don't think I've been happy with one yet. I blame myself.

Pretty pictures: July roadside flowers, pink/orange

Took a back-roads route from Iowa City last Thursday, and found all these. Plus there's another post with more flowers coming up tomorrow Tuesday. As always, if you know the identity of the one NOID, let me know in comments.

All of these will be bigger, clearer, and more detailed if opened in a new window.

When I took this picture, I was pretty sure it was a Queen Anne's lace, Daucus carota. Then as I got to looking at it afterward, I was thinking that it seemed awfully full for Queen Anne's lace, and maybe it was some other, related plant. Now I'm kind of leaning toward the Daucus theory again, but I'm unsure. Open in a new window to see the odd insect sitting right in the middle of it all.

I've taken photos of fleabane (Erigeron sp.) before. It's not a big thrill, and this particular batch looks kinda ratty (it's been windy a lot lately) but I feel obliged to include it for the sake of completeness.

Hadn't ever really noticed these NOIDs before: they're pretty tiny, and the plants look like hell (which you can kind of see from the foliage I didn't crop out), but when you get up close enough, the flowers are very nearly attractive. Not quite, but very nearly.

I have yet to take a picture of milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) flowers that didn't also include a ton of bugs as well. I think the common name should be changed to "pink orgyflower" or something similar. Interesting greenish, non-metallic bee in the top right.

I think this is a Rosa arkansana, prairie rose, in which case it is the official state flower of Iowa. If I'm wrong, then it's most likely a multiflora rose, Rosa multiflora, in which case it is a noxious invasive weed. Thorny son of a bitch either way.

Red clover, Trifolium pratense. I can't imagine any readers not knowing this plant, but I've led a sheltered and exclusively North American life thus far, so maybe they're news to someone. These are everywhere here, all the time. I also really like them.

Michigan lily, Lilium michiganense. We have orange daylilies all over the place here -- in some spots they're lining both sides of the road for a couple hundred feet. I remembered my grandmother having Michigan lilies along a slope to one side of her house, but was beginning to think I must have confused them with daylilies, because I'd never seen any around here that weren't obviously cultivated: I was pretty sure that hers hadn't been deliberately planted.

Now that I've seen this bunch, though, which was just sitting in the middle of nowhere along a road, with no house or other structure nearby, I feel a little more confident in saying that no, what she had really were Michigan lilies (which she called tiger lilies). 'Cause apparently they are around if you look for them. Just not to the same degree as the orange Hemerocallis.

Asclepias tuberosa. OMG guys I love these. We had had them at work last year, but sold out before any flowered, so I never got to see.

I've been noticing little flashes of orange low in the grass along Highway 218 for a couple weeks now, but of course we're always going by too fast to get a good look, so I wasn't sure what they were. The batch I finally took a picture of happened to be conveniently located near a gravel/highway intersection near Lone Tree, where we had to stop anyway.