Psst. Linda. My friend? She’s got spotty dotty. She told me herself. In fact she says she has it all over the place.
“Oooooohhhh-oh-oh-oh,” I breathed, with that little shudder at the end.
I haven’t told a soul. You wouldn’t. Well, okay, I told my friend Margo.
Spotty dotty isn’t something you catch. It’s not something you scratch. It’s something you score. The shady dude behind the dumpster in the alley that’s holding his coat open has a spotty dotty planted right in the cell phone pocket, right above all the Rolexes.
Podophyllum “Spotty Dotty” is a shade plant with gigantic, voluptuous lobed leaves in sassy chartreuse with reddish-chocolate spotting, and if you lift her skirts, you find pendulous cherry-red flowers. And if you want one of your own, she can set you back $54 for a 3.5-inch pot, retail. I don’t know what they go for on the street. No one I know has one. Everyone I know has put it in their nursery cart at least once and then put it back just before check-out.
So. Linda said “Want some?” Not want one. SOME. I did, Lordy, I did. She promptly dug up a generous bevy of spotty dotties with brazen rootage. I snatched them up and hid them in the shade of the house, out of view from the street. And called Margo. “I’ve got the package,” I said. “I can hook you up.”
“Oooooohhhh-oh-oh-oh,” she breathed.
We both planted our spotty dotties last fall and this spring they magically reappeared out of the soil. I’d put a plastic Virgin Mary next to mine just in case she had some pull but it looks like they’re fine on their own. Linda came over the other day and noticed my stash right away. “Looking good,” she said. “‘Do you want any more?” Ohhh.
Margo planted hers and I’m sure the leaves are a foot and a half across by now because that’s sort of a policy in her garden, but I like her anyway. We gardeners chat about what we have and what we can spare but most of us have all the same stuff. “Did you buy that Solomon’s Seal?” Linda asked me, pointing at a renovated shade bed, and I said oh Hell no, I chopped it out of the ground and jammed it in there with no ceremony. “Oh,” she said, “because I have a ton of that.” Yeah. We all do.
I’d like to be able to give her something, though. “Do you need any Alstroeme…”
Both palms shot up “NOOOOOO-OOO!” before I could get out the “…rias?”
Alstroemeria. An utterly lovely flower, it has, and it knows it, and thinks that the only thing that could be finer than a little clump of Alstroemerias is an entire acre of them. Alstroemerias are vain. Alstroemerias, a.k.a. Peruvian lilies, are bent on empire. I can’t dig them out of my beds fast enough. But it’s too late. You can put an Alstroemeria flowerhead on a pike as a warning, and the rest of them grow taller to get a better look. You’d have to scoop them two feet deep and send them through a sieve to get rid of them. And they’d still send out scouts for new outposts the next year.
What you need is a newbie to take them away. You have to get an East Coast transplant who’s all excited about the blackberry sprig in his back yard. Someone who buys tomato starts in April. Someone who says he’s planning to plant purple hyacinths next to Gloriosa daisies because of the color combination, and who is amazed and impressed when you tell him they don’t bloom at the same time. You have to find an innocent.
“I can get you some bulbs and divisions,” you say, once you find your mark, keeping your tone non-threatening. “I’ve got some stuff. Hmm. Would you like to try some Alstroemerias?”
He perks up. “Are they pretty?”
“They’re gorgeous. They truly are.” (They are.)
“Would they be okay in shade? Do you think I could grow them here?”
“Oh, they’ll do fine just about anywhere,” I said, evenly. “I mean, I don’t know. You could give them a shot, anyway.”
He looked eager, but hesitated.
I cut my eyes down the street. “First clump’s free,” I hissed.
Years ago there was a vacant house that Sam and I would pass on our walks in the old neighborhood. There was a big yucca in the yard that I coveted, but wandering into someone else’s yard, no matter how abandoned it seemed was something Mom had told me was a bad idea.
One day we went past the yard and the house was gone, the yard had been bulldozed and the yucca was wilting on top of a pile of dirt. I grabbed it and skulked home with it, stuck it in the ground with potting soil and daily waterings.
It sat there for at least a year looking sorry for itself before it sent forth some new growth. I moved shortly afterward and took my refugee with me. It went through the same sulking process at the new house. Twice, because the neighbor objected to me watering his fence and made me move it.
It’s settled in at its new location and now has five clones that are busy crowding the iris and the lilies. Before it took off, I salvaged three more yuccas from a spot of the road shoulder where they got weed whacked a few times a year. They’re also doing fine.
If you like yuccas, they’re a wonderful thing. If you don’t like them, but have them in your yard, they’ll be there long after you’re dirt.
They’ll have daylilies for company.
I love your story…. I had a friend bring me some Brazen Hussy which she said will grow early in between winter and spring and will spread. I forgot where I planted it and then the first year…. TA DA!!!!! There it was with loads of flowers. I love it. My current favorite is a gorgeous Mullein surrounded by poppies of wonderful colors. This grows in a neighbors gravel driveway.
Uh, YEAH, it will spread! Hope you like it better than everything else! It’s beautiful but horribly invasive. Poppies are probably my favorite flowers but I don’t have a lot of luck with them.
I once did flowers for an event where Dr. Joyce Brothers was speaking, and I was asked to take flowers to her hotel suite, too. So I delivered them, and I had used alstroemerias in the arrangement. She was not familiar with them, and asked if they would grow in pots. I didn’t know, but I told her I’d find out. Too bad she passed away before I could find the answer. She wanted to have some on her balcony in NYC.
Bouquets are exactly where Alstroemerias belong. Penned up!
HAHA….too related to bamboo?
I was FINALLY out in my yard today, ripping out invasive vines that had grown onto my lilac hedge (trumpet vine, honeysuckle, wild grape.) Despite the fact that they were touting poor air quality due to the wildfires in Canada (yes, even here in Delaware), my arthritis did not hurt AT ALL and I had loads of energy. So, I went outside, did something productive that badly needed to be done, got loads of exercise, sweated profusely, even though it was chilly out (it’s NEVER chilly here in June. Always hot and humid.) There was a nice breeze, so it kept the mosquitoes at bay. They’re saying that people should stay inside, close their windows, turn on the AC, and wear a mask if you go outside. Jeezus… 🙄 I was out there all morning, have the windows open, and it’s WAY too chilly to turn on the AC. I have an air purifier that tells you when air quality is poor, and I have it turned on despite the open windows. The bars on it are green, signifying good air quality. (They turn yellow and sometimes red when Paul is cleaning the bathroom. He uses the “stuff that works.” I use the environmentally friendly stuff that doesn’t.) Right now, I have to wait for the trifecta of mild weather, breeze, and physical agility in order to work in the yard. So, it’s a little hazy. Pfft.
“He uses the ‘stuff that works.’ I use the environmentally friendly stuff that doesn’t.”
Yeah. I choose my battles. At least he cleans the bathroom and kitchen. A lot of guys don’t clean squat.
When I use the “stuff that works” in the shower, the air purifier three rooms away pegs the needle (or would if it had a needle) within a minute, but I figured something in my lungs was probably doing the same, so I switched to the stuff with hypochlorous acid. I’m guessing Paul does not have asthma.
No, he doesn’t. But we have an air purifier a couple rooms over, in the bird room, that has a gauge on it. When it’s green, air is good, yellow, it’s moderate, red it’s poor air quality. When he cleans, it goes into the yellow, but once it went into the red. I was like, open the bathroom window NOW and close the door! I don’t care about mildew. I think THAT’S less hazardous than the cure for mildew.
Your collards fed me this spring. I’ll take a number for whatever you’re getting out of the ground. Hell, I’ll even help.
Jimmy?
I’ll take whatever he’s having. Those collards fed us in the spring.
Ah yes.
I had no idea alstromerias were so invasive. People have them here in small clumps of different colours and I haven’t noticed anyone hacking out the excess.
They’re slow about it but there’s no stopping them that I know of.
Heh heh heh, hey newbie, want some rose campion?
Newbie……would you like some Lily of the Valley?
I’d love some but it won’t grow where we are. The winters are too warm.
Bellflower, anyone? Anyone?
No? How about this mislabeled marjoram that’s a wonderful carpet of some type of mint? Weeds can’t get through it!
Lovely Spanish hyacinth?—you’ll have a sea of blue every spring (crowding out everyone else)… showy milkweed? Invite those butterflies (and good luck confining it to only half your garden) … Alaska daisies? (Clumps require a trenching tool to remove but) hey, pretty white flowers.
“an East Coast transplant who’s all excited about the blackberry sprig in his back yard” LOL! I’m an East Coast transplant (48 years ago), but I learned about blackberries within the first five years here. I painted something ghastly whose name I can’t recall onto the stems, waited two weeks for the cuticle to deteriorate so the next application could sink in and wreak its havoc, then painted the stems again. That worked.
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