{"id":90115,"date":"2019-04-04T21:38:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T01:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=90115"},"modified":"2019-04-06T12:10:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T16:10:08","slug":"the-giant-fennel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=90115","title":{"rendered":"the giant fennel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Agia Sophia, Monemvasia, Greece (13th century Byzantine church)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mitch has been sending photos from his wanderings in Greece this week while I watch his cat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Monemvasia, “Gibraltar of the East,” island connected to mainland Greece by causeway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I don’t mean to always be a supergeek botanical nuisance, but there’s been a tall umbellifer cropping up in the background in those haunting scenes of Peloponnesian ruins, in stupendous bloom — I wonder, could it be the Mediterranean’s own giant fennel? Ferula communis ‘Gigantea’ is not the edible fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), but a spectacular monocarpic showboat grown for its ferny leaves and luminous, statuesque presence in bloom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The timing of his photos is positively freakish because, coincidentally, before seeing these photos, I had planted two in my garden earlier in the week, grown by Annie’s Annuals but picked up at a local nursery, my second attempt with this fennel. This time I gave them all the sun I could find in my very crowded garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So having giant fennel on the brain, I asked for more photos, please, perhaps a closeup to help with ID, and he cheerfully complied. I don’t know what else it could be but giant fennel. It’s that same commanding, aureate vision I had in mind when settling in my two 4-inch plants this week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course my little urban garden can’t compete with a setting of Mycenaean<\/em> stonework . (Don’t quote me on the age of the stonework, but it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There definitely seems to be some synergy going on with the fennel and the stones — drainage, alkalinity maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mitch was very excited about this superbloom of Grecian poppies, and normally I’d be all over the poppies…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But it’s Greece’s giant fennel that has stolen my heart this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all photos by MB Maher<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitch has been sending photos from his wanderings in Greece this week while I watch his cat. I don’t mean to always be a supergeek botanical nuisance, but there’s been a tall umbellifer cropping up in the background in those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[850,30,36],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-nrt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90115"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90115"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90170,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90115\/revisions\/90170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}