Smile Peeps!
Last night we finally got some badly needed rain.
It poured and poured and the rainfall level reached almost an 1"!
I felt like a little girl again letting the rain fall all over me and stomping in the rain!
My garden has suffered over the last two months.
But there are a few plants that are doing well, my true heat lovers!
My most favorite annual heat lover is Heirloom Balsam.
They're different from standard impatiens (Impatiens walleriana) which are shorter an bushier.
Both are tender annuals (not cold hardy) known as balsam (Impatiens Balsamina) is a flowering heirloom plant originally from Southeast Asia. It grows about 2 to 3 feet tall.
Their one of my faves, their heavy self seeders, grow fast, tall and look great in a cottage garden.
Balsams are also known as “touch-me-not” because when the seedpods are touched they explode and scatter their "seed bombs" all over and spring into new plants next year.
I have the variety Balsam Mix, which is a single flower that looks like snapdragons in shades of blackberry, salmon, soft pink and rose. All the shades are neony except the soft pink. Butterflies and bees adore them.
They are also entirely edible - from leaf to stem. The leaves and stems are often eaten cooked as a vegetable, tasting rather like asparagus, and the seeds are collected and cooked as well.
Aren't they pretty?
Balsams produce huge amount of seeds, more than enough to share!
If any one would like some Free seeds, just let me know.
I'm more than happy to share with friends!
Gotta love just getting out there and enjoying a much needed rain. Your garden is beautiful. I love a good mix of colors like that. Thanks for coming by and leaving me your kind thoughts at Quirky Vistas. I do appreciate it.
Liz
It was great to finally get out in my garden, the plants do not look quite so thirsty! Hopefully more rain is a coming. So glad you like my garden, I so wish you could see her in her prime instead of struggling through a drought!
Cathy, you crack me up with your comment over at my blog. If you offered $50 and got the chairs, I would be glad because then I'd have $40 more, I wouldn't be hungry right now, and I could come and sit in your lovely garden on your ever so cute chippy aqua cast iron chairs while you served me ice tea and some cookies or something. Which would be more to eat than I have in the house right now. I wasn't kidding about not buying groceries. Ha! The only lesson you would likely learn from me is that I'm cheap! That is the secret. If you don't have it, you can't buy it (unless you use the grocery money, of course). It makes you take chances and offer what you can. And...if you got the chairs, you could be the one to decide whether to refinish them or not and then you could do the work too! I'd be fine with that.
Liz
I love your balsam. So many different colors. Just beautiful. Love your four footed friends too. Hope you have a good weekend.
Yael from Home Garden Diggers
Hi Cathy: I've never grown balsam before, but I think they are lovely. So glad that they are thriving in your garden, and that you got the rain that you needed as well. Have a wonderful weekend--I can't believe it's almost the weekend already!)
I just found this site & I have to say I am in love with everything about it. I'd LOVE some seeds, please, if it's not too late. I'm a gardener, trying to my best to transform our lil house in the woods with its clay soil into a blooming paradise. I'd be glad to trade some of my purple hyacinth bean seeds!
Lovely flowers. Seed and plant sharing is so much fun! Rain is nice too! (even if it lasts for days)
Gorgeous... I love the salmon ones...little fairy flowers.