Friday Fabulous Flower - prettiest no-no you can plant

TPP just reminded himself about one of his most important garden rules: never plant a loosestrife. They simply will not behave and they are difficult to eradicate once they are in your garden. Last year (one year after planting) a small patch of Lysimachia ciliata looked grand next to our pond, but this spring it erupted to occupy a greatly expanded area; yikes! After a rugged extraction, TPP now notices that bits of rhizome survived and are trying to reestablish the patch. It won't happen, but you pays the price for being stupid and planting a loosestrife in the first place.  Now today's feature plant the gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) is not quite so explosively invasive, and it is a totally lovely plant, but the patch covers a pretty extensive area and Mrs. Phactor has decided it's coming out, just not yet.  But it is quite attractive what with the white flowers in a shady area and the graceful curve of the raceme. Don't be seduced!

Friday Fabulous Flower - Deptford pink

Not all invasive, exotic plants, aliens, immigrants, are bad.  The Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) isn't a problem of any sort that TPP knows of and it makes itself quite at home in a prairie.  It appears to blend into the forb ensemble quite amicably.  Mostly it goes unnoticed because it's a very slender, small-leafed plant up to about 2-2.5 feet tall topped by some very pretty, but very small flowers (about 1 cm in diameter).  It would be a nice addition to a wild flower perennial garden, and will grow in some very poor soil under pretty dry conditions. The plant sways easily in the wind, and since the target is small, photographing the flowers in the field is a challenge; here's a shot that was grabbed while collecting data the other week.  Like pinks in general the petals are notched or toothed at the apex, and in this species pink petals splotched with white.  Deptford is a town in the UK where this plant grew abundantly; somehow this name stuck with it in North America.  Our local variety tends to be a bit paler pink than populations elsewhere.