Just FYI

If you give a castor bean plant water and fish emulsion every three weeks and plant it in a sunny place, it will look like this.

And the root ball will be so thick and sturdy by the next spring that you'll have to clip the roots and then hang your whole body weight on the trunk to get it out of the ground.

I planted a Chionochloa rubra in its place, along with some annual tidytips (Layia platyglossa) to fill in.

Greg was so insistent that this grass not poke into the driveway (the castor bean did) that I planted it too close to the Mahonia. Now the question is, can I plant another castor bean here for the summer while the grass gets up to size? Maybe I won't give it quite so much fish emulsion this time.

Did I make a terrible mistake?

We've had a tiny dusting of snow and many nights of frost and the castor bean leaves had all shriveled.

People kept telling me it would turn to mush as soon as the temperatures fell but it was still solid as a rock. I pruned off what I could without a hacksaw and left this poor trunk.

Now of course I'm second-guessing this decision. What if it would have survived the freezing cold to rebloom next spring? That's impossible in 8b, right?

It's still growing.

Last week was windy. All that wind really fluffed up my castor bean plant, causing it to lose some height but gain some width. 

No joke, it's as wide as my Honda is long.

But I'm more excited because my Mahonia media 'Arthur Menzies' put on about 8 inches of growth overnight.

Grow, baby, grow! That castor bean is going to die soon and I'll have a big gaping hole that you need to fill.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day August 2012

I've been down with a migraine for three days, so I've been avoiding bright light in favor of dramatically clutching my head in a dark room. But, this:

Castor oil/bean plant Ricinus communis

The temperature soared to 102 a few weekends back and this guy gained six inches of height in one weekend. I am so sad this plant is an annual. Stick around, why don't you?

Everything in the front yard behaved like a champ in the searing heat, although my poor Fatsia japonica in the backyard was scorched.

Writing about these two plants in the same post makes me realize why they call Fatsia "false castor oil plant." They have very similarly shaped leaves.

Also scorched were my beautiful lilies. They were the prettiest white with a yellow center. I hate the heat so much; I would be lost without my air conditioning.

Luckily the heat turned my Angelica stricta purpurea from a lavender monster into the dark purple beauty I wanted and now I love it again. Especially flanked with Crocosmia 'Golden Fleece' and Knautia macedonica. I can't wait for these two to self-seed and expand next summer.

Angelica, you can stay!

I told Greg that I want to harvest the castor bean seeds so I can always have a plant in my yard. He's freaked out about how poisonous they are. I said I wouldn't harvest the seeds if he would buy me a new start next spring, and he agreed. So, what else should I tell him is poisonous? I think I could really increase my spending power if I can convince him that some of my other plants' seeds could kill him. Quick, what's on your too-expensive-to-buy-dream-plant list?

For the full show of bloom day entries, head over to May Dreams Gardens.