EMBARRASSING MISTAKES CAN BE VALUABLE LESSONS
While I don't claim to be a botanist by any stretch of the imagination, my passion for health - and the use of herbs - has meant a long journey of learning and applying. Since high school days I have always had herb gardens - or failing that; pots of herbs in sunny window spots. If gardens relied on me they would be barren patches of soil with an occasional oasis of herbs. The gardeners in our family are my mother and brother (Mr Aquaponics @craigcryptoking). Apart from my flourishing herbs the green fingers I have are due to the time I spend at my canvas with my oil paints.
So imagine my horror and embarrassment when my mother commended me on my beautiful tamarisk. Tama-what?!! Where?! What I thought was my magnificent flowering ginger bush! I had been showing off this spectacular purple sight to visitors, as well as plotting my latest post about the very rare ginger bush. I had found this little sapling at a rare herb nursery. I was told that while related to the ginger plant (from which we harvest the ginger root) this ginger bush is quite different. I planted it in one of my herb gardens and waited.
What a disappointment. Not to mention embarrassment. I have learnt a valuable lesson. Firstly that a tamarisk is a deciduous shrub that grows into a tree of up to 8 metres! But my second and most important lesson is that you need to confirm everything! Don't ever accept as fact and truth what you read or hear. I do not by nature have a distrustful nature but I have a very enquiring mind and like to know everything related to a topic. You may pick that up in my posts. I touch on history, geography, application etc but with this innocent looking "herb" I simply didn't do further research.
There's no denying this Tamarisk is magnificent in bloom. My big dilemma now is that if it intends to become a tree it will block all the sunlight to my herb garden. It is also too much of a luxury in the current drought situation so it will probably have to be removed. At least I can share my experience with my readers. The photos will also be entered into the Combination Photography Contest held by @papa-pepper. Whether I win or not, I'm sure it will give someone a chuckle.
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Ah well...yes, the trials of gardening. I've planted what I thought was one thing only to have it be something totally different before! This summer I very nearly planted wild comfrey instead of the sterile variety and THAT would've been a giant pain. I only avoided that one by the skin of my teeth, but usually I end up planting first and finding out later.
It is a beautiful bush - is there any way to just prune it back and keep it as a miniature tamarisk?
There probably is. But it has very "leggy" branches. I'm not sure if they don't want to be long. Although how that becomes a tree remains a mystery. Funnily enough I planted an elder on the opposite side, thinking I would keep it pruned back....it has become a huge tree and babies keep springing up! Much to my father-in-laws disgust. The bugs love it. Which means they stay away from the gardens.
How do you use your comfrey @lturner? I have many uses for comfrey but always curious to hear from others
Well, I haven't used the comfrey for anything as of yet - I planted a very tiny root crown and it's just a baby plant right now.
But I plan to use it initially as a fertilizer plant for the garden. If the plant gets big enough, I hope to split off more crowns and have enough to use it as straight mulch and make comfrey tea for liquid fertilizer.
After that...well, haven't had enough experience with it to know! I just discovered it this summer and will have to find some uses for it now that it's in the yard.
What do you use it for?
Comfrey is fantastic for gardens. I try to plant it around the edges - it can become like a weed though. When I first discovered comfrey, years ago, it was by the term and for the application "knit bone". So when there is an injury - human or animal I crush and bandage up. It works fantastically. I've used it on myself and not too long ago on a lamb. He was orphaned and came running to me as I was milking our cow. Poor Molly stood on him and dislocated his leg. We popped it back in and then strapped it up with a comfrey poultice. I dosed him with Golden Paste for a few weeks and he was frolicking within days. Comfrey is also high in calcium so ideal for both chickens and goats. They love it. I have found that you need to train chickens from young as the older hens won't touch it without persuasion unless they grew up eating it
I've heard of Boneset before! I didn't realize it was probably comfrey. Makes sense that it would contain calcium; and most herbs that contain calcium also seem to enhance calcium absorption (like red raspberry leaves).
The chickens are probably saying, "What, you expect us to eat SALAD now?"
That is so funny. Our chickens on the other hand are saying "What? You are wearing our salad?" Yip very similar to red raspberry
You know, ive never actually seen a Ginger plant before! It looks like an apple or pear type of blossom at the moment.
This is NOT what a ginger plant looks like so I have discovered. I've been nursing a ginger root that I planted in summer and it kind of looks like a banana plant. I googled images and the flowers are gorgeous. Vibrant. Not at all this tiny lilac mass of flowers
AAAH - Gotchya - i see now..