I am Johnny Iris-Seed

[layla]

One of my co-workers gave me a bag of wild iris seeds that she'd gathered from irises in their yard. She told me that she's had absolutely no luck at trying to get them to grow in warm, moist, fertile soil, but some seeds that were accidentally dropped in their gravel driveway grew like anything. Soooo .... tonight I scattered seeds all around the yard, hoping to hit by random chance upon a perfect iris-growing environment. High places, low places, sunny places, shady places, leafy places, gravely places. Some seeds I just threw in random directions, while others I covered carefully with leaves or dirt. In the spring, I suppose I will see what I've wrought.

It's chilly in here. We are out of coal (still trying to get the coal guys to deliver some more; they're all booked up) so we've been making a wood fire in the boiler every few days. The only real difference with wood vs. coal is that coal gives you a lot more heat for the effort, and we're really just too damn lazy to make a fire tonight. So it's 60 degrees in the house, and I think I'll be taking a fast, furtive shower tonight.

Comments

[dewgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, I let us run out of water last week. Oops. No shower at all for a day or so.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Been there, done that. Actually this summer we had company almost all summer, so we ran out of water nearly every month -- we finally had to change our auto-fill to every 3 weeks instead of every month because it just wasn't working.

You guys have a water tank, then?

[dewgeist.livejournal.com]

Yep.Water, Septic, Oil...it's tank city.

[(Anonymous)]

Some plants really do "thrive on neglect" -- maybe wild irises are such plants. I love nasturtiums, but the first time I tried planting any they didn't grow. I'd carefully patted them into nice soil and watered them and left them in sunshine... what did I do wrong? I consulted my mother, an old hand at nasturtiums, and she advised: "Poke them into the dirt and then leave them completely alone for a week or two." Darned if those seeds didn't sprout right up.

-SarahD in CA

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

That might explain why nasturtiums are one of the few plants I can reliably grow ... they must love me; I ignore the hell out of them. It's funny that I always have a garden and houseplants, because I'm so ... well, indifferent to them.