Respect

A good bit of my morning was spent watering and then trying to weed around some lamb's ear plants.  It occurred to me how lovely these plants are and as I stroked the leaves and felt the velvety texture I marvelled that such a seemingly fragile plant can be so very hardy.  Looking at the information on the different gardening websites, many of the descriptions were not very inspiring, calling this plant "invasive" and a "common ground cover".  In other words, they don't get too much respect. I finally found something positive written by Marcia Tatroe in The Herb Companion Magazine...

"Few silver-foliaged plants are grown more widely than lamb's ears.  Even the sophisticated gardener who has long since tossed out other beginner's plants still values this silver-gray beauty and the impact it has on other colors in the garden".

She then went on to say that one may dry the leaves and steep them for tea.  Also, children will take them and  put them on their scrapes and cuts and they act as a natural bandage.  I found that interesting  but I just like the way that they look and I am grateful that they can survive in this brutal heat that we call summer.  "In our busy lives, we need to stop and take take to appreciate all the natural beauty that surrounds us each day."  Someone left that comment at the very bottom of my blog and I agree!

These are the lamb's ears next to the Dutch irises that my brother gave us as bulbs years ago! This photo was made in April of this year and not long after those tall stalks had purple flowers on the top that the bees were crazy about.  We left the flowers on there as long as we could, just for the bees!