At Horsetail Haven we don’t wait until the solstice to experience summer. June began hot and dry, Fortunately the sky has opened up and the garden has been blessed with both a tremendous lightening shows and rain, heavenly rain.  The flowers of the pale pink crepe myrtle have burst open and shimmer in the moonlight along with silvery dusty miller leaves and white four o'clock blooms.

The fish pond received a much needed cleaning at the end of May.  What a mucky, yucky task!  Plants were divided; water lilies, cannas, lizard tail and fragrant aquatic mint were growing out of their pots.  Texas star hibiscus still had room to grow, perhaps they will be repotted later this  summer.  (Ann Marie had hit her muck limit for the day.)  The largest goldfish in the pond is about 4 inches long, many others are in the 2-3 inch range and then there were some cute babies, about ½ inch long.   Hopefully they will be able to continue to outwit visiting raccoons, opossums, herons and cats.  Large raccoon prints were visible on the pond ledge the morning after the cleaning, but there didn't appear to be any fish missing.  Just an early morning dip before climbing on the roof and tap dancing????

Purple Clover & Queen Anne’s Lace…
Ann Marie has tried for years to get this combination growing but her thumb turns black when she plants what were common roadside weeds when she was growing up in Iowa.  This year two Queen Anne’s Lace plants thrive in the yard so perhaps there is hope.  This plant is known by the same botanical name as our plump rooted edible carrots, Daucus carotus, and if you spotted the two plants at Horsetail Haven you would see fern like green tops that look like they belong on the end of the orange vegetable.

What we Americans know as Queen Anne’s Lace is known as Wild Carrot in other parts of the world and if you pull up the skinny root of the plant the aroma is the same as a garden grown carrot.  The scent is misleading, though.  The root of Queen Anne’s Lace is reported to be quite bitter.  A word of caution is needed here.  There are many related and similar looking plants that are highly toxic, poison hemlock is a good example, so it is best to accept the word of others about the bitterness and stick to eating only Bugs Bunny's plump, garden carrots.  Misidentification of a wild plant could be deadly.

Queen Anne's Lace is a plant with fern like leaves and large, lacy umbels of white flowers.  What distinguishes it is a single dark, wine colored blossom at the very center of the umbel.  (Sources do say that there are unusual forms that lack this characteristic)  It is the dark flower that provides one of common names for the plant.  The tale says that the red bloom is from the blood of Queen Anne as she pricked her finger while making lace.  Most sources consider this a myth, for one thing, the plant isn't even called Queen Anne's Lace in the countries (England or France) where Annes reigned.  Other sources suggest that the name might have been derived from Saint Ann, the mother of the Virgin Mary.  Support of this is that she is the Patron Saint of lace makers. Another common name for the plant is Bird's Nest or Bees Nest flower and this, too, is descriptive.  As seeds begin forming the umbel curls upward into a nest shape.  When the seeds are mature it flattens out for easier dispersal of the seeds.  What a fascinating plant to observe as it grows in the garden.