{"id":110074,"date":"2026-07-06T16:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T20:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=110074"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T20:15:06","slug":"when-color-becomes-controversial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=110074","title":{"rendered":"when color becomes controversial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My compact form of Senecio\/Brachyglottis greyi is now shining forth in bloom. And this is after getting frequently trimmed for size to keep it off the manzanita. I love it in the nubby pearly bud stage, which lasts a while, but have no quarrel with the yellow daisy stage either. For me summer and yellow are inseparable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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still serenely silver in the early summer nubby bud stage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’ve read that the yellow daisies are considered a drawback, and some opt to shear them off. And that’s cool. I’ve pulled out flourishing plants whose color I just couldn’t wake up to another morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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burgundy and yellow\/gold have been pals since medieval times, expensive to produce, coveted by clergy and nobility<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bees are drawn to yellow flowers, while the color seems to set some people on edge. Maybe there’s a linkage there: instinctive fear of getting stung? Perhaps people find it a bit on the common, lowbrow side of the color spectrum. After all, yellow is one of the most common flower colors of weeds. The bee’s survival depends on honing in on yellow; in the garden, we have the luxury to indulge personal aesthetics. (And aesthetics haven’t always been a personal choice. In medieval times, “sumptuary laws” prescribed fabric colors based on rank and were enforced by punishment.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Manipulating plants like shearing off flowers sounds so unnatural, but hey that’s horticulture. Every volunteer seedling we pull or allow to grow, what we deadhead or allow to set seed. Topiary, pollarding, pleaching, grafting, hedging. Training vines through shrubs, etc (this year it’s rhodochiton again, Cobaea scandens, and Jerry’s Tropaeoleum tuberosum.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tropaeolum tuberosum from Jerry\/Botanica Chaotica via Dirty Digger’s Plant Sale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just this morning I limbed up the little ‘Sunset’ manzanita in the stock tank to keep it off the phlomis in the ground below. It was past time to reveal that sexy burgundy armature anyway. And speaking of phlomis, that’s another one that gets a bad rap for its yellow flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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knock wood, Arctostaphylos ‘Sunset’ still enjoying container life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Making a garden is a glorious, ruthless business, full of color disputes and rancorous opinions. More please! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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burgundy penstemons, ‘Raven’ foreground, ‘Mockingbird’ background. Oh, and that background blur of pink? It’s been pulled out (Diascia personata)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Have a great week. We’re hoping for less firework activity so Billie catches a break and gets a good night’s sleep. We hiked that little dog 3 miles yesterday around Soapstone Lake — she needs her rest! More soon, AGO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My compact form of Senecio\/Brachyglottis greyi is now shining forth in bloom. And this is after getting frequently trimmed for size to keep it off the manzanita. I love it in the nubby pearly bud stage, which lasts a while, … 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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[550,5119,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-oregon-garden","category-plant-portraits"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-sDo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110074"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110175,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110074\/revisions\/110175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}