Hope you can be at the next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society on Wednesday, March 16 at 7:00 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. Our guest speaker will be Fred Waelchli telling us about quinoa. Quinoa is in so many products now; it will be very interesting to learn more about it! That’s Wednesday, March 16; join us!
To everyone who is Irish or Irish for just one day, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I read somewhere that in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day is the day to plant potatoes and peas, imagine! Since we can’t do that, let’s have a cup of green tea and chat about that famous St. Patrick’s Day plant, the shamrock.
The shamrock, oxalis, became associated with this great day because legend says that St. Patrick, who brought Christianity to Ireland, used the three-leaved plant to teach about the Trinity. They are beautiful plants, tis true… perhaps you might want to try them as a houseplant!
Oxalis belongs to the wood sorrel family, and there are almost 900 oxalis varieties out there!
You may have seen the dark purple-leaved “oxalis triangularis” which is very lovely, but any of the oxalis houseplant varieties are dainty, fresh-looking plants that are tougher than they look!
Oxalis grows from rhizomes, and they like indirect, bright light and cooler temperatures. Keep the soil moist, but don’t let it get soggy. Wait until the soil dries out before watering again. When I was doing some homework about the oxalis, I learned that if we forget to water it and it droops, it will come back again! Isn’t that reassuring!
However, I also learned that the oxalis does have a couple dormant periods during the year, and when that happens, we shouldn’t panic! We should just let the leaves die back, stop watering, and place the plant in a cool dark location for about three months. When we see tender little green shoots appearing again, then it is time to move our oxalis back into a bright location. (I also read that because the plant does have dormant periods, it is not the best choice for container gardening, but because it is so pretty and textural, why not give it a try and treat it as an annual).
Another plant for the day is Irish moss, also called Scot’s moss. This is a perennial in warmer zones, and is a wonderful groundcover or filler between paving stones. We grew this once in our garden; the little plant obviously couldn’t read because it didn’t know from the tag that it wasn’t supposed to grow here; but it did survive several seasons before it finally fizzled out. We had it planted in an area that got a lot of snow, perhaps this provided the protection that it needed. It didn’t grow much, but it was lovely while it lasted.
So now here is the good news: I read that it can be used with success in a container planting. Can’t you just envision a dark ceramic planter, maybe dark blue or dark grey, filled only with greens in varying heights: a cascading ivy, a dense mound of the Irish moss in the front, an airy ornamental grass like pennisetum “Fountain Grass”, something tall and commanding like “Kung Tut”, and maybe something full and quiet like an elegant fern. Put them all together with a Zen-type grouping of three rocks of assorted sizes and heights in the foreground, or maybe a small Japanese lantern…it would be very striking! The thing we have to keep in mind and accept is to treat the plant as an annual and enjoy it for all it has to give us during the season.
Gosh, I just can’t wait! Won’t it be fun to get started with our planting! See what’s new on our website at www.yorktonhort.ca and have a great week!
