Mystery Plants

I need a plant detective…

In trying to mend my lackadaisical garden record keeping ways, I am staring a list of the plants in the garden, along with their general requirements and propagation methods. Unfortunately, though, my inconsistent habit of keeping the garden center tags is catching up with me. Plus, pass-along plants don’t generally come with tags. So I need some help.

I have two plants that I cannot find names for. Can someone please post a comment and enlighten me?

Mystery Plant #1

This is a plant that I bought at the garden center and planted last year. It is in front of the house, which is mostly north-facing, so it gets only a bit of sun during the day.

Although it started out as small starters in 3″ pots, it quickly bushed out into a nice, spreading plant, but without becoming out of control. It is about 6″ high and has a nice clumping habit.

It has tiny, variegated leaves with spiky edges. In the spring, it sports tiny yellow clusters of flowers just above the foliage. And this is a nice feature: It stays green all winter long here in zone 7.

Does anyone know the name of this useful little plant?

Mystery Plant #2

The second mystery plant was recently given to me by our family friend Lucia.

First, you should know that Lucia loves all plants. She does not discriminate between those that are weeds and those that are finely-bred and valuable specimens. She also NEVER EVER knows the name of a plant or its origin. She passes along a plant with the generic endorsement, “It is boo-ti-ful. You will love it.”

As a result, I always fret about her gifts and whether they will turn into monsters.

She also has the tendency to tell me WHERE to plant something. And if she doesn’t like how I plant it, she digs it up and re-plants it. Sometimes, she comes over our house and I don’t know she’s here until I hear the waterhose turn on. She’s outside in my garden!

Despite all that, she is a good-hearted person and we couldn’t get along without her here. I don’t have the heart (nerve) to tell her to stop telling me what to do.

Nuff said about Lucia…

Mystery plant #2 is one of her recent gifts. It is a small plant that she says will spread. (Oh, goodie.) She also says that it likes shade and will grow to be about 1′ high.

The leaves are rather pretty–green with veins of red underneath and showing on top. The stems also are green and red.

The plant looks a bit fragile and spindly to me right now, but she says that it will fill out as it gets established. I have planted several of them in a shade garden I’m starting near the driveway turnaround.

Do I WANT this plant to get established? What the heck is it?

On the Subject of Record Keeping

Many of the garden bloggers that I’m reading reference reference going back to their blog postings to see when plants bloomed or harvests occurred in previous years. So it seems that many are also using their blogs as their record keeping tool for the garden. I haven’t seen anything particularly formalized in this respect, although I have seen one garden blogger (can’t find her now) who actually keeps a TO DO list, complete with crossed-out chores, on her home page!

I began this garden year keeping a spiral notebook of each day: what was planted, what chores were completed, etc. That lasted about 10 minutes. So I’m looking for a better method.

For example, a client of mine recently bought a house with a beautiful yard and garden already in place. The owner had lovingly made a drawing of the whole yard with landscaper-like notes. And, GET THIS, he also had an Excel spreadsheet cross-referencing all of the plants in the drawing, along with when they were planted, requirements, propagation methods and other information.

I think that I don’t want to go the Excel spreadsheet route, but I am interested in something a bit more formalized that what I’ve been doing. (Which would be nothing.) I would be fascinated to hear how you keep your own garden records.

Help anyone?