Purple Hidden Among the Blue

I keep saying that I came home to a nearly completely blue floral palette in the driveway bed. But I also noted earlier in the year about the variety of plants that had come up in the driveway bed.

Yesterday evening I did a little weeding out there and suddenly wondered what had happened to one plant that had seemed pretty healthy in the spring. I went hunting among the spreading stalks of the Viper's Bugloss, and look what I found.

This is actually a native wildflower. I dug it out of a ditch at least 20 years ago. It's Hoary Vervain, Verbena stricta.

And even better, there are 3 or 4 additional seedlings coming up. It's a perenniel, but will self-sow. If it bloomed last year, I didn't see it. But it must have for the babies to appear. I don't think it propogates vegetatively. I'll try to collect them into one general area. It's native, and pollinators love it.

The Viper's Bugloss is also loved by pollinators. It's a biennial. So I have to move the small rosettes to where I want them next year in the fall. I'll try to get one started somewhere other than on top of the Vervain because it gets huge when it's happy.

Want to see just the Vervain closer? Here you go.

This makes me pretty happy. It blooms for a long time, so hopefully I can get a clump of it going.

The heat got a bit oppressive this afternoon. There is a nice breeze, but even so, it's hard to breathe. I did a little bit outside, but spent more time doing computer things. In fact, I got one knotty problem solved with trying to get my mysteries moved from Amazon KDP to Ingram Spark. Once all 6 books are transferred (4 have successfully migrated, 2 to go), I'll try to get some bookstores to order them. This is taking months, but it will be worth it. Don't worry if that doesn't make much sense to you.

We are supposed to get a little rain tomorrow, but I've had to water the gardens as things were actually getting droopy.

See Flowers and Weeds See Driveway Bed