If you have been here before, you may remember the above photograph, a plant of rich and velvety lushness that had just turned up in one of our 'pots'. A Mullein of course. Later it was seen to contain at its heart a diamond of great beauty which I also tried to photograph.
One turn of Fortune's Wheel produced all that deliciousness. Now another turn and all is changed.
The ravages began to be apparent about a week ago but now the complete plant has something of the appearance of a bombed tower block.
The perpetrators look like tigers in their particular jungle but Frances' researches lead us to suspect that they are not on their way to stardom as exotic Hawk Moths, as I had hoped, but, rather more mundanely, they will emerge as Large White Butterflies!
The scent of Lemon Verbena is an important element of the olfactory background to my childhood (along with Sweet Peas and Lilies of the Valley) and I always try to have a pot of it within pinching distance of a route from the house used many times a day.
Apart from the smell there is not much special about the plant in my view except for the fact that it usually fails to 'get going' in the Spring until just after the point when I have spent considerable emotion over its presumed demise!
This year was different! I am no horticulturalist and I have no idea whether this is a common occurrence but I was amazed and fascinated to notice that the plant had contrived to create a double leaf, as you can see here.
Amazing enough for the plant to have done it but I was enthralled at how extraordinarily beautifully it had done the job. I feel that if I were to give a single leaf to all manner of designers, artists, geometers and so on with the request that they design a double version, they would not come up with a more perfect shape than we have here.
