Mint gone to seed, even though it is a perennial & does sometimes die-back to the ground in zone 9 but I just leave the stalks to let me know where it was & each spring it comes back & spreads. There are many kinds of mint: spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, Egyptian mint, etc. They can spread but they're not exactly ivy, I don't mind if the mint spreads, I consider it groundcover; I also cut a small bunch & throw it in the car, it helps with motion-sickness & smells better to me than any car "air freshener". The pic with a black background is mint catkins.
The next pic is of Italian oregano, there are many kinds of this as well. This is also a perennial, as opposed to annual-1 time. It has a wiry stem, so to use the leaves I tear them away all at once, the same way as for removing thorns from rose canes.
The purplish flowers are basil, I think it was a purple basil that reverted to green. The seeds even smell strongly like the leaves & are small, blackish, found inside round flat discs on the stem. They require bottom heat, I just use a plastic lid & put them on the cable box; you probably could use a heating pad on low for much less than the greenhouse version that sells for $60 to $70.
I miss my hollyhocks, I used to be able to buy seeds for the color advertized, but the last time I bought pink they were all white doubles. I also bought the more expensive orange bell pepper plants & when the time came-they were red. So I bought a few orange bellpeppers at the grocery store, scooped out the seeds & grew them from that. The reason why orange bellpeppers are more expensive is because fewer of their seeds sprout-even with bottom heat. Yellow peppers have a higher germination rate than orange, but red-nearly ALL of those seeds sprout, hence they're cheaper.
I looked at the back of seed packets & far too many are, you guessed it 'Made in China'. I think that's why my rosy hollyhocks were actually white doubles, & that's also why I bought plants I thought were orange bellpeppers-I paid for them-but those Walmart plants were just cheap red bellpeppers.
I am reminded of history, when the British were in China they were sold what they believed where tea plants, but they turned out to be just tea-roses instead. They had to wait till they matured & bloomed to realize this which was at least 6 months. The Brits kept going back to China, when all they had were those wooden ships, & the Chinese sold them all kinds of camellias, gardenias, magnolias-in an effort to prevent them from finding the real tea plant, which is I think a member of the camellia family. This
link shows the history of tea-I was wrong, the British WERE LAST to go to China, Portugese were 1st!
I made the "Armistice Blouse", from FolkWear Patterns, using neopolitan TLC Baby yarn. I just chose a closed repeat pattern from the Harmony Guides 300 Stitches to Crochet. The 'bib' section I made in the 'Half Double Crochet Cluster Stitch 1'. The pattern was made horizontally. The front I shifted to 'Sedge Stitch 1' & made the side fronts vertically, you can see the differences in texture of the 2 patterns in the closeup pic. I used the tissue pattern as a guide & did not count how many rows, etc. I would periodically lay the crocheted work down over the pattern pieces; I used safety pins to mark places like: beginning of armhole, where to lengthen for shoulders, etc. I made the side front, back, & other side front as 1 piece, I pinned the 'bib', right sides together, & crocheted it to the front along each side. It is just a pullover, whereas the pattern made from cloth buttons down 1 side of the bib to the side front.
Lonicera fragrantissima, the flowers are tiny with 4 petals held up like fingers & a 5th petal held opposite like a thumb & always as twins, 2 buds that are attached to the branches. The flowers emit a strong sweet perfume, almost like lillies, when the sun comes out. Usually I hear so many bees on it that it sounds like a beehive, but bees have been scarce here too as elsewhere. Also usually, the leaves have all fallen off & that made it easier to see the tiny witchhazel-like flowers, but this year it hasn't gotten cold enough yet, even the trees in the area are behind, only now turning yellow/orange & falling down. The honeysuckle is listed in catalogues as getting only 8 feet tall, but mine is even with the roof(1 story). There are tiny hairs on this honeysuckle like with hollyhocks, but this is a beautiful plant right outside a window; I love opening the window even for a short time to let the sweet scent in, it is not like 4 o'Clocks-no night fragrance, only in daylight, or cut & put in water inside.
