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| Centaurea cyanus, May 13 2018 |
While I have written about Mother’s Day here my mother is
still in my thoughts and in this remembrance I am lucky to report that my mother
and my Rosemary always got along splendidly. I have been thinking why.
My conclusion is that both of them were (and my Rosemary is
) snobs.
My mother often said in my presence, “Hay poca gente fina
como nosotros.”This translates to, "There are few people around as refined as we are."
In gardening circles there is a word that is used a lot by “gente
fina”. This is the word choice. A choice plant is generally one that is hard to
find, hard to grow and expensive to buy. A passing synonym for choice is “rare”.
In our former very large garden Rosemary kept my desires for
certain plants at bay by telling me they were not choice nor special in any
way. Fortunately I developed an interest in old roses (certainly rare, these
days, choice and mostly expensive).
Rosemary had (and has) an extra talent which was to predict
before anybody a garden plant that would be big (choice) years later. My friends
Alleyne and Barbara Cook (I believe they are plant snobs, too) prefer the term
to define these choice plants as “good garden plants.”
The above is but a prelude to the topic today which is the
weed.
Not far from our Kitsilano home, on the corner a neighbour has a long
outside bed on the street with Cynara cyanus, commonly called Bachelor’s
Buttons or Corn Plant. It is supposed to be an annual. Perhaps our neighbour’s
just seed themselves every year. There are other Cynara that Rosemary did
tolerate. It was a perennial that was bluer and had more petals.
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| Rosemary's perennial Centaurea |
In Spanish we have a saying, “Mala yerba no muere, “Terrible
weeds never die.”
They may not be snobs but they certainly are resilient.