Plant news from my house, a song in silver, gray, and blue (and of course green).
Off to the nursery yesterday to upgrade the pots for several plants: a much larger pot for the big Spathipyllum houseplant I call Spathy (see my 1/4/18 posting “Spathy in maturity”), which was grotesquely potbound; and a larger dish for a succulent garden I wrote about in a 4/26 posting “New on the patio”– #2 there:
(#1) Blue Curls, plus four other succulents, three of them quite blue, one green and juniper-like
Freed from the confines of their little plastic containers from Trader Joes, they all set out to bulk up and spread over their new world, and almost immediately needed a bigger territory. That led me, eventually to the Turquoise Dish, where they live now, with some new gray sedum ‘Cape Blanco’ companions.
Along the way I picked up a creeping lamium with silver leaves, which goes by the name ‘Lami Mega Purple’.
Variety in foliage color, beyond nature’s basic green, is a developing theme outside my window. Coleus with red and yellow in their leaves; a Cordyline (ti plant) hybrid with bronzy-burgundy leaves; and now the silver / gray / blue succulents and lamium.
The Turquoise Dish, as planted yesterday:
(#2) Succulents and pretty stones
Sedum spathulifolium ‘Cape Blanco’, Spoon-leaved Stonecrop. From the perennials.com site:
(#3)
(Sometimes called Gormania spathulifolia) This well-behaved Stonecrop species is an excellent edging or rock garden plant, particularly for hot, dry sites. It forms a low, slow-spreading cushion or carpet of powdery, grey-green leaves. Bright yellow starry flowers appear in late summer.
A hardy alpine plant that doesn’t do well in wet winters, but will do fine just outside my window, where it’s out of the rain zone.
(Earlier postings look at sedums (stonecrops) and sempervivums (houseleeks) in general — both sturdy and attractive genera of succulents.)
Lamium maculatum Lami™ ‘Mega Purple’, Creeping Lamium. A cultivated version of a widespread creeping weed, used as a ground cover. A relatively weedy variety of the species, such as we encouraged to grow in our wild lawn in Columbus OH:
(#4)
Lamium maculatum (also known as spotted dead-nettle, spotted henbit and purple dragon) is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae [the labiate family, now named after Lamium as the type genus], native throughout Europe and temperate Asia (Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, western China).
… The soft hairy leaf blades are about 8 inches long. They are spotted (hence the Latin name maculatum), toothed with long petioles, about 2–4 centimetres (0.79–1.57 in) long. Their shape varies from ovate-triangular to heart-shaped. The inflorescence bears about two to eight hermaphrodite flowers about 20–30 millimetres (0.79–1.18 in) long. The flowers of the plant are formed in the leaf axils of the upper leaf pairs. The upper lips of the flowers are helmet-shaped, usually pink or purplish, while the bilobate lower ones are whitish with purple dots. (Wikipedia link)
Cultivars have leaves that are green, silver-gray, or yellow; with flowers in shades of purple to pink, or white. In particular, the cultivar Lamium maculatum Lami™ ‘Mega Purple’, Creeping Lamium, from the perennials.com site:
(#5)
A tough and showy perennial groundcover, this forms a spreading patch of small silver leaves with a wide green edge. Clusters of large, purple flowers appear in spring then continuing off and on until fall. Fairly tolerant of dry shade, once established. Trim or mow back hard in late winter. Evergreen. Excellent choice for all containers.
I’m looking forward to it.
A pronunciation query. I haven’t been able to determine how plant people pronounce the Lami of Lami™ ‘Mega Purple’. The genus name is pronounced /’lemɪǝm/, which would predict /’lemi/ for Lami, but that sounds like “lame-y”, and who wants a lame (or lameo / lame-o) plant?
The other possibilities are /’læmi/ (like “lammy”, as in the Lammys, the Lambda Literary Awards for celebrating or exploring lgbt themes, or possibly like “lamb-y” ‘lamb-like’) and /’lami/ (like “lommy”, as in the character Lommy from Game of Thrones, or possibly a portmanteau for lesbian mommy).
I’m not taken with any of the alternatives.
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