A mild winter and a cold spring is perfect for this plant:



Myosotidium hortensia

Nice. Gives you the feeling of 'being alive'

Ed

I second that Ed, yesterday & finally I hope, the start of many "great to be alive" days.
Spent most of yesterday slaving over a hot trowel, fork & watering can.
Finishing touches to finally & hopefully fox-proofing garden (talk about persistant animals)

This is what I thought WilE's "Perfect Weather" topic would be about, general garden/greenhouse weather stuff but interesting to see the Myosotidum.
I bought one of these for first time purely for its interesting foliage a couple of weeks ago.
I think I've managed to work out that the appearance of what looks like a piece of grey broccolli amongst its leaves will be flowers.
A much better photo of it from WilE than the one supplied on the label, looking forward to seeing those blue flowers (although at this time of year I don't think much can beat the Brunnera in the garden for a blue flower - except maybe an unfamiliar new blue plant bought a couple of weeks ago from Homebase, that will be a close contender - but I can't remeber its name due to my habit of removing labels ! )

Steve

Very it is a lovely plant I prefer the leafs on this plant to the flowers as they can get hidden by the leafs

Watch out for slugs Steve, they are even more delicious than hostas as far as they are concerned!!

Aw!, why did you have to go and spoil it ?

There aren't many broad leaved foliage plants about, I've got hostas and bergenias for foliage contrast but as you say, if not careful, they end up looking like pieces of crochet work !
I thought I'd try this plant instead, nothing on the label about being prone to slugs/snails (there's a surprise?) but Googling after buying confirmed this.
I don't think I even needed to Google it, I thought "Slug Food" to myself as soon as I picked it up at the Garden Centre......but still bought it.
It'll be interesting to see how a new plant performs.

Steve

If you want a cheap slug killer porridge oats work well but you have to keep adding it if it gets wet. My plant don't get rare often to be honest.
If you grow in pots then a good layer of vasiline around the top of the pots works really well to.

Thanks for the tips blondie !
I'd heard of the Vaseline treatment but not the Oats, I can imagine them not wanting to crawl over that drying, powdery texture?
It certainly makes sense, I'll give it a try.

Steve

The actually eat the oats and get full from them and then the oats swell up inside and split them open and kills them

Surprised: I would never have guessed that, I thought maybe the texture of the Oats had a "blotting paper" effect on their wet, slimy bodies ?

Gross........ what a way to go ?

Steve

Mines in a big (20 inch) pot so I can move it to a warm spot in the winter, and that seems to help with the slugs. I use a few slug pellets too just in case

I've tried Hostas in pots, I thought the slugs managed to crawl up through the hole in the bottom of the pot so I bought those ceramic blocks to stand the pots on, placed the whole lot on a drip-tray sprinkled with salt, but still they get through

I think like mealy bugs, I've got to accept that I will always get a few when I'm not looking.

Steve