Rewilding My Lot

One of the types of seed that I sowed in the back part of the garden last fall was Standing Cypress (Ipomopsis rubra). This is a biennial plant and most often in the first year there is only a rosette of ferny leaves, followed the next year by a tall flower spike and seed production.

Knowing that two-year lifecycle, I had already planned to sow the same seeds again this fall so as to have a flowering population each year. Nature is giving me a helping hand with that as well, in that a significant proportion (maybe 5%?) of what I sowed is already blooming in this first year.

For instance, in the photo below, you can see one red flower spike and several more dark green clumps of leaves at ground level — they are the rosettes waiting to bloom next year. (There’s also a nice view of the Leavenworth’s Eryngo, which becomes more purple each day!)

I still have a lot of the tall clusters of red flowers that are frequently visited by hummingbirds, but some have already started to form seed pods — first green, then brown. Since I want to have these flowers in the same location next year, there is no need for me to harvest seeds for distribution — I’ll just let the plants handle that themselves.