Monday, August 25, 2008

New arrivals: Lantana, sweet olive, rain lily

My mom came to visit recently, and we wandered happily through a lot of local nurseries. I got some interesting additions:
  • A lovely lantana, "Olivia" -- pink and gold like the clouds at sunrise.
  • A rain lily -- the flower on this one seems immense to me. White with a faint pink sheen. Planted in the bed where its foliage looks exactly like our weeds. Predicting trouble there.
  • There was a variety of ruellia with small, oval leaves and a horizontal habit that I'd never seen before, so I got two and stuck them under our cedar elms. If they're as vigorous as our regular ruellia, I think I've solved the baldness problem back there. Possibly they are "creeping ruellia."
  • An incredibly healthy torenia is now brightening our big planter on the back patio.
  • Mom brought us a big sweet olive shrub -- she got three big $29 plants that were in bad shape and the nursery owner sold them to her for $5, but she hadn't found a place to plant the third one. So we happily glommed on to it, plus I bought a little one because lately I've had trouble finding the big ones. So those two need to find spots someplace.