{"id":19406,"date":"2011-07-01T13:25:34","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T17:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=19406"},"modified":"2011-07-01T20:00:06","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T00:00:06","slug":"madeira-giant-bellflower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=19406","title":{"rendered":"Madeira Giant Bellflower"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musschia wollastonii<\/a> bulges out of this large pot at an angle as though off a cliff in its native haunts of Madeira<\/a>, Portugal. <\/p>\n

\"Photobucket\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s gaining size rapidly, pushing aside the cordyline, but I try to stay calm and suppress an increasingly giddy expectation that it possibly intends to bloom this summer. Internet photos of its 6-foot panicles of bloom show chartreuse flowers which remind me in character of Michauxia tchihatchewii, pronounced like a sneeze, another odd bellflower I grew once, with its “Catherine wheel” flowers. (Always that reference to michauxia having “Catherine wheel” flowers, a charming description. I remember the collaboration between choreographer Twyla Tharp and musician David Byrne<\/a> called “The Catherine Wheel” but other than that, the words draw a blank. Possibly a reference to a medieval dance or a wheel for spinning yarn? This morning I looked it up and wished I hadn’t. An appalling Middle Ages method of torture and death.)<\/p>\n

Thankfully, this biennial Madeira Giant Bellflower has no such cruel associations. *Named for the physician and explorer A.F.R. Wollaston. John Grimshaw’s Garden Diary<\/a> has an interesting post on Wollaston and some of the plants given his name, like my Wollaston’s Musschia, which has been thriving in filtered morning sun and the even moisture a container provides. An exciting plant for shady gardens. <\/p>\n

<\/big><\/p>\n

*According to Mr. Grimshaw, not named for AFR Wollaston after all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musschia wollastonii bulges out of this large pot at an angle as though off a cliff in its native haunts of Madeira, Portugal. It’s gaining size rapidly, pushing aside the cordyline, but I try to stay calm and suppress an … 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":[36],"tags":[1283,126,1280,1281,1279,1282],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-530","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406"}],"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=19406"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19435,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions\/19435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}