Sunday, May 24, 2009

Fever few - an English cottage garden plant


I was at the Callander Horticultural Society perennial plant sale Saturday morning and what a commotion that was! The doors opened at 8 a.m. and they were nearly sold out by the time I got there at 8:40. Unbelievable.

This is a picture of what I bought for $4 - fever few, rebecca, rose campanula and artemesia "Silver King." Still a very good buy but I do wish I had been present earlier. If these were the dregs I can only imagine what was selling to the first shoppers..... I know better too as I have been there before. The master gardener taking my money reminded me if you buy a membership you can shop the night before when you drop off your perennial contributions. I think that is the route to take. There is one meeting a month you may attend... winter is long so it sounds like a solid idea.

Feverfew (Chrysanthemum parthenium) is very attractive perrenial herb with daisy-like white flowers growing up to 60 cm tall. It has no culinary use because it tastes bad! But it can be an important medicinal plant. Relief from insect bites could be one of them!

Artemisia Silver King grow 75-90 cm and is known for its use in dried flower arrangements. I will put it in the perennial bed that gets partial shade and see what happens.

Campanula I don't know a lot about. It is also known as Cantebury Bells and has charming cup and saucer flowers. Another experiment.

The Rebecca offers me more tall yellow flowers if that is in fact what I have!

Now, this is all assuming these plants are properly labelled. Another year I bought a "Common Oleander" at the same plant sale and it turned out to be a very large mistake! What I had was an invasive pink jewel weed and I am still destroying it in various beds. It aggressively re-seeds and I am even afraid it will go wild like purple loose strife and cause problems around the farm and South River area where I live.

Okay, I am off to garden now!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nancy,

Do you have any recipes using feverfew? I'm supposed to start eating it for its anti-inflammatory properties.

Thoughts would be appreciated!

Thank you!