So, the garden at the Professor Haus is half chaos and half intentional. We’re going to be talking about a section of the yard that is sort of a mixture of both.
First off – last year, I had absolutely gorgeous dahlias. I mean, I’ve never grown anything more beautiful in my entire life. And they kept coming… and kept coming.
We got them when we visited a tulip farm in Holland last spring. The dahlias were on clearance, because they were supposed to be planted in the fall, but we went ahead and planted them anyways.
I wanted these gorgeous blooms to return year after year, so I read up on the care and feeding of dahlia tubers. I read that I was supposed to dig them up and store them loosely covered in soil over the winter. We stored them in our basement.
Then when it was time to plant them, I was supposed to soak them in water for 24 hours and then gently plant them back in the ground.
I did all those steps… to the letter. And so far, no dahlias.
But also during the time that I was diligently following the steps to another year of gorgeous dahlias, MIckey kept insisting we scatter random seed mixes around the place where the dahlias bloomed last year. We call it “the dahlia circle”.
Original, huh?
Well, right now it looks like this:
Sure, there are some weeds there, and we’ll get to them eventually. To the right of this wildflower patch is the aforementioned dahlia circle.
To the left of this wildflower patch is a path bisecting this section of the yard. It should look like you’re walking through a fairytale by the time we’re done with it. It’s lined with good sticks Mickey found me from along the riverbed or other places.
There are a few different varieties of flowers in that patch, as you can see. When one of them bloomed, though, I was instantly taken with it. I don’t know how else to describe it but it felt like the math of flowers.
In a good way.
Let me show it to you.
It’s called mallow and I am in love with how geometric it is. And, while the color in the photo above is gorgeous – it has nothing on what it looks like in person. I understand why people go crazy painting now. It’s near impossible to accurately depict these colors in person.
In fact, there’s only one artist that I can think of that could even begin to do them justice.
Okay, now let’s find out some more about this gorgeous flower who lives in my yard.
Okay, well the first thing that I learned about this plant that got my hype was this – You know the color mauve? Well, it was named after the French word for this plant. Neat! I mean, I get it. I want to capture this gorgeous shade too and I’m not even a professional.
The leaves of some species of this plant can be eaten. When they are young, you eat ‘em up like lettuce in a caesar salad or caesar salad wrap. Or whatever kind of salad you like too. When the leaves of the mallow plant are older, you cook ‘em and eat ‘em, like spinach with lots of garlic or greens with the perfect amount of vinegar and hot sauce. Or however you cook your leafy green veggies. You do you, girl.
I will not be trying my mallow leaves, because my OCD doesn’t trust me enough that I wouldn’t accidentally kill myself.
Another thing I discovered about this lovely plant is that it used to be used as an aphrodisiac. As a former beer podcaster, I loved learning that it was Pliny the Elder (who is also the namesake of what many beer folks I used to know considered one of the best beers of all time ever) who said, “a sprinkle of mallow would inspire lust to “an infinite degree.””
As I’m reading some of the other blogs and stuff about this flower, I’m finding a few that are calling this a common garden weed. Well, to them I say:
You’re nothing more than a common garden blog yourself.
I think this flower is gorgeous and it makes me smile to see it in my garden.
In conclusion, there are 61 species of this lovely flower and I am happy to have this gorgeously perfect mauve species in my garden.
Also in conclusion, this is one from this morning that got all eaten up by the groundhog probably.
