Good day to you, my dear Osteospermum!

My friend Yves came by this afternoon to check on the garden which is still in the making. New plants have arrived. (I mean, he brought new plants even if from time to time some do migrate and we find baby oaks, etc. all over our place.)

He had to set them right where he wants his gardeners to put them in tomorrow since he’s the landscape designer - the mind behind the spade!

My tradescantia really worries me. I brought one of the two pots with me from Paris where they winter. One really needed to be repotted, something I can’t do in Swee’ Pea’s apartment. And repotted it is now but it does not look very good. It probably feels lonely. I am kidding. I do not think it likes being outside, that’s all!

Yves being around, I asked him what could be the problem... “Too much sun,” he said.

“Too much sun?” The weather has been everything but sunny. I mean it’s been a little bit sunny from time to time but Spring is turning back into Winter, seems like...

While I am writing, it’s raining cats and dogs and the gusts of the Northern wind are up to 62 miles/hour (so they said on the radio a couple of hours ago). Impressive! The sea is flecked with white caps (horses, my British friends).

“Too sunny?” I said again while pointing at the South African daisies that were as closed up as they could be even though it only was 4:00 p.m. (In May, in  Brittany, the sun sets well after 9:30 p.m.)

We had a good laugh about those seemingly dainty daisies because actually Osteosperma are very hardy perennial plants.

Osteosperma -- Osteopermums in the plural if you are not a latinist and Osteospermum in the singular -- The name was created from Greek [“osteon” - bone] and Latin [“spermum” - seed]. Don’t ask me why... Well, “seed” makes sense, of course! Any idea about “bone”?

Is Osteospermum a “Dimophotheca”? Well, I love being a bluestocking there. It truly was formerly called “Dimophotheca” except that there is a real difference between the two plants. They look alike but the “Dimophotheca” is annual and the “Osteospermum” is perennial. Easy, isn’t it?


 Everything is splendidly explained in a wonderful website that is all about one passion: Osteospermum. I learned a lot there about my South African daisies which are definitely Osteosperma because mine are perennial and they are very hardy indeed because they survived a very cold and snowy and freezing winter and very dry spells, last year.

I was very worried about them almost as much as I was about my Wollemi Pine and my Camellia sinensis and my Romneya coulteri...

You are probably thinking -- How stupid to worry about daisies? Daisies are so ordinary. Well, not my Osteosperma!

You’ll want to know why, of course. Won’t you now?

Well, you see, they are growing in the (flower) bed that is right by our door so I walk by them all the time. And you know what? I don’t even need to look at the sky to know whether or not it is cloudless or cloudy. Those flowers are extraordinary. They only open out if the light is strong and they will close up as soon as it gets cloudy and then they’ll open out again with the lightest ray of sunshine...

And then they go to sleep at night by closing up completely. They wake up again in the morning and open out fully if... 

Fully awake and basking in the sun light...

"Clouds coming! Oh dear!"

 

Weathering cloudy skies

Surviving heavy rains

I have quite a few very strange and exceptional flowers and plants in my magical garden but those simple and yet beautiful Osteosperma are the closest to my “Alice in Wonderland” idea of a garden.

Good Night to you, my dear Osteospermum!

*Good Luck, and Good Night*