While I was weeding The Ambitious Border Friday and Saturday (Sunday I was simply too knackered in my back and shoulders after two days of forking and kneeling – and I’m only 33! I definitely need to shape up if I want to keep up with the garden…) I couldn’t help thinking some of the weeds were simply just too cute to throw away, like this little baby:
Okay, so that picture is a recycled one from my post on the lawn, but to be honest there were areas in The Ambitious Border that looked much the same. Before I started the weeding, my Mother-In-Law mentioned that she wouldn’t know what was weeds and what wasn’t, and to be quite honest the mess in the border didn’t give any indication of what was supposed to be there and what wasn’t, but by Saturday afternoon she could definitely see what was supposed to be there, because there was nothing else!
Anyway, back to the little blue beauty! It has a creeping, spreading habit, and then it sends up its little flower spikes “soaring” 5 inches above the ground, so I figured that a) the lawn would inevitably encroach on the clear area around the 5 New Dawn roses I planted by the two hammock trees (a blood plum and an oak) so I might as well try to control which weeds will grow there, and b) these plants have such small, shallow root systems that I can’t imagine they will compete too much with the roses for food, especially considering that they are right next to 20-foot trees.
Today I realised, much to my joy, that the little blue beauty has a name; Ajuga Reptans (“creeping lip-less” in Danish; not the most flattering name!), and it’s actually not just a weed but also a perfectly accepted ground-covering perennial that can be bought from nurseries and garden centres!
I do hope they will spread out nicely on the bare soil around the roses now that they have no competition from grass and other weeds.
So there, an upgrade from weed (although pretty) to a desirable perennial! Thank you, Google!
What a gorgeous little plant. We’ve got quite a few native wildflowers with similar flowers. They make me think of orchids. I love the way the plant has evolved to have the sticky out bit (my botanical technical term!!) for bees to land on before crawling into the flower to gorge on nectar. The term ‘weed’ is only in the eye of the beholder anyway. I love chives but they’ve taken over a whole bed at my allotment so in my mind they are a weed at the moment.
Whereas in my herb patch the chive is the only non-weed, unless I start using nettles for culinary purposes…
But yes, they are very pretty flowers, and they might block off some of the less decorative weeds!
We have a blue flowering ajuga in our back lawn that is slowly taking over with an increase in sun in that area. It is very pretty and does spread rapidly.
They are pretty, and I like that if they spread too far they’re very easy to pull out of the ground! (Though really, why do that?)
Lawns do need some flowers, I think. (Though my mother used to spend hours at a time weeding away at the lawn when I was a kid, but I suspect that was because she wanted pure grass as it’s more hard-wearing than flowers, and with three sons in the house that lawn was subjected to a fair bit of wear…)
Thanks for letting me know the name of this cutie. I was thinking of them as a weed a couple of weeks ago before they bloomed, now I’ll just transplant them to a spot in the garden that needs them more than the lawn does.
I think they’re absolutely wonderful, and considering how – relatively – rarely I get around to mowing the lawn they make a lovely contribution to the flower meadow feel of the lawn. buttercups, ajugas, bellis, and surprisingly few dandelions.
Did you know you can get a bronze/purple leafed variety, ajuga reptans atropurpurea? It’s even prettier in grass.
That sounds lovely! I’d love to have more different types of small flowers. in the lawn – though there are already loads.