All-Purpose Flower: My Plant of the Summer

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My Plant of the Summer - Asarina

Blue Asarina.

This summer my plant selection deviated from most plans I'd made. Usually, the very first trip to the nursery results in several plants that I hadn't intended on buying. Which of course happened this year. I did have a list and I stuck to it, but I think the later trip to the grocery store where I bought the yellow zinnias was my red flag. When dealing with a small garden space you have to have room for each plant. Mine contained more yellow zinnias than I'd intended and put an early end to my nursery shopping.

I had several plants die and I'm really not sure why. There was the blue poppy, dead in under a week and the Black eyed Susan vines, which I quickly replaced with plants that did fine.

On my last visit to Chapman's Greenhouse I found Asarina plants. My mom and I had been there a couple of years ago and she had a clipping from a magazine with a photo of Asarina / Climbing Snapdragon Vine. They are a small nursery, but they did grow it. At the time it was too early and the plants weren't mature enough. When we went back they were gone.

So when I found them this summer I bought a red one for her and a blue one for me. Mine sat in the plastic pot for awhile. Then I tried to set it up on the 1/2 wall, but it was too windy, too sunny, and hard to water. So I planted it in a clay pot and set it on a table in the corner of the deck. It sat there unnoticed until I realized it was almost touching the ground, then I discovered several blooms.

That's when I decided to replace the pots in the Potlach clips on the screen with the Asarina.