Here is dear Shamrock's variegated thyme. It isn't yet hers because I only planted the cuttings from my mother plant yesterday. It'll be some months before it grows into what Shamrock thinks will be a "thicket". Thyme normally comes as a single coloured (green of course) plant. So, when I saw this two-coloured thyme at a local nursery, I just had to buy it. You see, it's both edible and very pretty.
Shamrock is my friend from Malaysia. Again, I have never met her and we have never spoken. Nonetheless, I have benefited greatly from her bountiful generosity. Plants from her garden have made circuitious routes via friends and relatives, to reach me in time for potting and rooting. I've had beans and flowers of all sorts come across the Causeway to me.
You can't help but admire Shamrock. Her garden looks like paradise on earth. There are charming statuettes, cascades of leaves and carpets of flowers of every colour, that bloom in turn... and her mulberry trees... oh, I stand in awe of her mulberry cultivation. Kilos of red berries come off her mulberry trees. She has so much that she needs to freeze them because one can only eat so much mulberry muffins at one go. Everytime Shamrock takes pictures of her mulberry trees, I will waddle out forlornly to look sadly at my 3 skinny trees, which have never flowered and never fruited despite all my best efforts. I have talked to them, and sung to them, and carefully composed fertilizer mixes worthy of a five-star chef for plant food. But no berry. And I won't even tell you about her flowering sage... I've had sage for so long and it has never flowered.
Next to Shamrock's garden, my own is a poor relative... and the only thing I have that her garden does not, is the variegated thyme. I am looking forward to Shamrock's visit so that I can hear her squeal over the nice thicket I will be giving her... provided of course, that she does do such an undignified thing as to squeal. I do, because I am rather undignified... but not many ladies do.
4 comments:
Hehe, I know you will squeal in delight and not in fright when you receive my earthworms!
I came across this little mulberry plant in a pot at a local fish farm. Even it is small and looks neglected, it is full of berries. That inspired me to plant some cuttings. We have two at my parent's farm and they're always fruiting.
Funny thing is for years, it had never occured to me that they are indeed edible. Only after reading about them recently in gardeners' blogs did I munch on my first berry. That only happened last week. I have a goldmine in the backyard without realising it!
Full of berries you say? Sob! Sob! I just waddled out again to look at my 3 skinnies. NO BERRIES!
Oh yes! Be prepared for lotsa squealing!!!!
Maybe you just have to neglect them.
Last night, I stuck my hands (gloved of course) into the compost bin and moved the dirt around just to check how my worms were doing. They're all happy and well. :-)
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