A Growing Obsession

Of a triangular, dark green, corrugated leaf, of a delicate, jewel-toned flower in cobalt blue, calyces of plummy purple.

You bring it home, where it sprawls, hides its flowers, sprawls some more, and starts numerous fights with its neighbors. So you cut it back, whereupon, in a sulk, it refuses to flower.

You begin to pretend indifference, to care for it less, and then ultimately to care not at all.

You say, S. semiatra doesn’t do well for me, and file it under “doesn’t do well,” a neutral category, essentially blameless for all concerned, and move on, hardly bruised by a fleeting encounter with this denizen of the Sierra Madre del Sur. And, really, what else can you expect from a plant that doesn’t even have a common name, a cherished folk name? Obviously, not many lived with it long enough to get chummy.

Decades roll by. By chance you see the closeup again of exquisite rugose leaf and two-toned flower. There’s a faint chorus of garden harpies in your head crying no! no! But there’s that closeup beckoning you, and the harpies are soon drowned out by your thumping heart and they recede, but not before first raising the alarm. So now you’re on the alert.

You bring it home. You watch this salvia warily, waiting for the “troubles” to begin at any moment. Ah, yes, that sprawl! Memories flood back of its wayward idiosyncrasies, the bitter disappointment. So many plants have passed through the garden in two decades that it now seems a promiscuous blur, one long horticultural bender. So many good plants tried and discarded, seemingly in a race. To and for what, who can say? And it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that the garden has not necessarily been the better for the endless variety.

So this time you watch the little salvia calmly, knowing it is not a personal rebuke if a plant cannot fulfill its needs in your garden. But it’s possible you just didn’t watch closely enough before, always in a rush, thinking there would be yet more and more plants to discover, to fail with. Decades later, you know this isn’t so, that the quest is finite.

And somehow, strangely enough, the quest has now changed from finding the next jewel to understanding the needs of those few with the best chance of flourishing in your garden. It’s very clear now you won’t be able to find all the jewels, only a very few, and if you keep rushing along you might miss those willing to grow for you if you’d just watch quietly and wait.

So you wish to sprawl, do you? Well, why don’t I plant you close to the pathway, where your wild ways will bother no one. But you’re getting in such a tangle now, and I do so want to see your flowers. Let’s prop you up on this wrought iron plant stand, shall we? It’s never been of much use elsewhere. Why, how clever of you to drape so fetchingly!

Hello, little friend. What shall I call you? Ah, ‘El Perdido,’ the Lost One (almost).

Some backstory, which begins improbably enough with tulips. The two plants would seem to have nothing whatsoever in common,
but that’s the joy of backyard Frankensteinian horticultural experiments, where you’re mad scientist in chief. And if you get up early
enough, there’ll be no witnesses, one of the best incentives for rising early next to strong black coffee.

Fishhook senecio, S. radicans, is commonly used to dramatically spill out of succulent container plantings,
like this one I made in a hay trough a few years ago:

With the backstory handled, now we’re regaining some momentum to this tale.
The tulips have been moved into the sun, buds are forming, stems
elongating. So far, so good. But there’s still those hideous black pots.
I assumed the black pots of tulips in bloom would be cleverly hidden in the garden amidst
blowsy spring annuals, but growth in the garden is not tall enough yet for such
chicanery, and the tulips are rapidly rushing into flower. A large pot is now what’s
needed to serve as a cache pot, and there happens to be just such a pot standing idly by.

So one large pot, unscrubbed (you can scrub yours…)
with another pot nested inside for a platform for the tulip pots to
stand on. Expect lots of rummaging through old pots to make this work.
Once the platform of nested pots is adjusted, on go the tulip pots.

Now it’s apparent the whole arrangement is simply more of the same hideous because
the black pots cannot be concealed short of stuffing the spaces with
moss, a technique best reserved for the sterility of business office foyers (and I
don’t have any moss, darn it).

A filler is needed, but what?

It is at just such a moment that the gardener methodically walks the length and breadth of her
garden, taking new inventory of the familiar with laser-like focus, possibly muttering softly to
herself. A plectranthus is temporarily considered but rejected for not enough leaf.
Mid-winter there’s absolutely nothing that will do — but wait, what about the fishhook?
That’s the answer!

The pot is grabbed from its neglected status on a side porch flanking the driveway
and carried into the back garden, 5 feet of trailing fishhook bringing up the rear.
Some careful maneuvering onto a couple bricks for the new platform, some wrapping and weaving,
and the black plastic pots are hidden.

And after that buildup, I know the next photo might seem a tad anti-climactic:

Possibly slightly better than hideous. But I was newly struck by the amazing potential of
S. radicans. With so much interest in plant material for roofing and even siding of green buildings,
for zone 10 I submit the fishhook senecio for consideration. Because it is pliable and will root at leaf nodes,
the possibilities seem endless. I’ll probably take this experiment with tulips apart, but what about
wrapping a moss orb round and round, where it can root and trail at will? Or “curtains” of fishhook
senecio for a faux window on a fence? No doubt more early morning experiments are ahead this summer.