snapdragons
My lovely itinerant snapdragons! Anticipating their next location is one of my favorite gardening activities.
I am not sure why this particular plant likes to change its location, but it does so with a fluid path of movement devoid of the randomness of tomatoes or nicotiana in its slow travel through the garden.
It started as a petite hybrid cultivar in a lovely mix of jewel colors, no taller than five inches, with a tame and suitable front of the border disposition. As you know the offspring of hybrids don’t look like their parents because old genetic traits come out to express themselves in surprising ways. This is not a desirable feature for most flowers, since the process is meant specifically to improve upon their natural state, but how can you mess up snapdragons?
The next year they grew four foot long, moved around a decorative pine and started meandering through the roses like their kin likes to do. No self-respecting snapdragon will be trained, so don’t expect them to line up neatly where you want them. Much like the lilies, they choose to weave and wander and the wise gardener is well advised to accept it. Of course the winter was mild and the parent plants came back in spring and thetwo different varieties beautifully coexisted that year. Don’t worry that the taller snapdragons reseeded at the front of the border, their long sappy stems laid close to the ground and sprawled. I had to pick them up for every mowing of the grass.
One year and six feet later, beautiful spires of burgundy and yellow showed up. The plants gracefully completed the half circle around the flower bed to reach its southern edge where they internalized the better growing conditions and decided to set camp for a while.
Here they are now donning an intense magenta hue, they almost look like they’re pouting.
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