| This is one of my favorite plants, a miniature treasure as simple and perfect as only Nature can design! Native to the American West, the Poached-Egg Plant is just 6 inches tall and wide, yet is sweetly fragrant, a magnet for butterflies and bees, and terrifically floriferous over a long summer-to-fall season. Who can ask for anything more? Find a sunny spot for this annual, which delights with ferny divided foliage and bright yellow-and-white blooms -- held in a shallow cup shape -- on slender stems. It is delightful in containers of all kinds, but I prefer it in a large planting at the front of the border or bed, where it can share its fragrance with less-fortunate plants! It makes a nice foreground planting to everything from dwarf Zinnia (the Peter Pan hybrids are about the right size -- try rich Envy to long-blooming perennial Rozanne). Because it's a native plant, expect great resistance to weather, poor soil, and other hardships that slow down "imports"! Limnanthes is easy to grow, and makes an exceptionally nice edging along walkways. Great for the rock garden, too, where its diminutive presence makes a cheery accent. It will self-seed very freely, so you may want it in a meadowland or informal setting where it can pop up unexpectedly next spring. (If you don't want it to return, cut it before it sets seeds, or grow in containers.) Compact and very floriferous, fragrant and bright, the Poached Egg Plant is a gem you'll want to tuck into bare sunny spots all over the garden. Pkt is 100 seeds. |
