Friday, October 10, 2014

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate

Catchy title don't you think?  It is the name of the plant below.  Well, just wait to see the how irresistable the view is!  What to love more? The airy pink bloom, the height or the variegated foliage?
Started this from seed indoor. The seed came in a small envelope by mail from that amazing gardener and blogger Nan Ondra.  She gave away for free hundreds of packets collected, packed, labeled and mailed with her own hands last fall for the readers of her blog Hayefield. Will I ever be able to share my time and garden like that ?!

Here it is! As eccentric as the name! It got  3-4' tall for me. It could get as high as 6'.  One plant had very little variegation. The other three had variegation as close to the one in the picture.  Planted half of the seedlings in part sun moist soil and half in full sun very dry poor soil.  In the sunny area, the plants didn't make it past 3 feet and the foliage was smaller.  The foliage shown below is from one of the plants grown in part shade and moist soil.
Varigated-kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate or
Persicaria orientalis ‘Shiro-gane Nishiki’ (grown as an annual here in Ohio)



Thank you Nan Ondra!  Now lets hope this beauty is able to re-seed by itself since I am no longer planning to go to the pain of caring over tiny tiny annual seedlings until they make it to become this beautiful. Or maybe I will!

I will also share today's post with Floral Friday Fotos blog.

7 comments:

  1. Those are lovely flowers ! Great photos !

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  2. Very pretty little flowers and I love the beautiful leaves.

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  3. I'm thrilled to see that the variegated KMOTGG did so well for you, Daniela. If it's just starting to flower now, it likely won't have time to set seeds (it probably would need another 3 to 4 weeks, at least, without frost). But if you're lucky and they do form, letting them self-sow should work fine; that's always how I handle mine from year to year. Good luck!
    Nan at Hayefield

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    1. Thanks for your note and for this beautiful plant! Since I posted this, one of the flower head was broken by my son playing soccer in the yard. The second was eaten by deer. One more left and I am watching it like a hawk! I need that seed to set and dry!

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  4. We have these in our garden also and they are delightful.
    Thanks for linking with Floral Friday Fotos.

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