themagnoliatreeblog

I am not an intensive gardener, or scream at the sight of a weed, I tend to let things get on with their lives once sprouted, either in the ground or a pot. Only when I see the ‘gang aspect’ of weeds try to take over a patch, will I step in.

I recycle much of the compost I use, then add some wormery or bakashi compost together with additional nutrients and still, I get some interesting results. I planted a verbascum in a large pot and noticed strawberry leaves appear at the side. I ignored them and now the verbascum is in flower, I was checking it for watering and discovered two lovely sweet strawberries in the pot as well.

I am a bit fussier when it comes to tomato plants, and use only fresh compost from growbags for them, and still I had a stray plant appear. I let it grow until it was around 2ft high then decided to remove it in case it interfered with the growth of the tomato plant. I re-potted it. If I wasn’t the curious kind, I would never have known this stray plant was a wonderberry. I had grown them last year so no idea how it got there but it’s one plant which won’t provide much of a harvest this year, but I can collect the seeds for next year. Wonderberries make a very good jam.

I collected nasturtium seeds last year and for some reason I couldn’t get many of them to germinate, that included new varieties I bought. The one seedpod which was totally unnoticed, sprouted from between the slabs in the greenhouse. We also had a tomato sprout between the slabs in the front path until someone removed it.

I am growing borage for the bees but although the ‘wild child’ seed didn’t grow in the pot, the foxglove, peeking through the arch, self-seeded from last year and perhaps thinks it should check out the competition.

In many containers and pots, there is the ‘odd’ plant appearing, strawberries and foxgloves pop up in some of the planters. About two years’ ago, I bought stocks in a garden centre from their reduced price section. They were lovely with a really powerful perfume. I took seeds from them but couldn’t get them to germinate last year so I gave most of the seeds away for someone else to try, leaving only a few to put in one small pot. One little plant is now in flower and it still has that lovely, strong perfume. Now I wish I had kept more of the seeds.

I must admit, I like seeing the little ‘odd’ plant develop, sometimes it’s a common weed but it can also be a flower I have grown the previous year which has sown it’s wild seeds. I see it as an added bonus to see the wild side of plants and their desire for survival.