Perennials and Annuals with a Christian Name P
Do You Know Jesus?
Pentecost Rose
Paeonia
Perennial USDA Zones: 2 - 8 Light: sun Zones 2 to 6; partial shade in warmer regions
Height: 1 1/2 to 5 feet, Width: 2 to 4 feet
Flower Colors: shades of white, red, yellow, pink; bi-colors
Bloom Time: late spring-summer.
Often sweetly fragrant, the peony is a very long-lived plant that forms 2- to 4-foot-tall clumps in shrub-like bunches. Its numerous varieties offer a wide range of colors -- almost every shade except blue -- with some bicolors, and blooming periods from late spring to early summer. They also come in several different shapes: single, double, Japanese (single with large yellow centers), and anemone (like the Japanese, with a powder-puff center). Peonies form bushy bundles of gorgeous, glossy, dark green leaves that remain attractive into fall, when they may turn gleaming maroon.
Gaining in popularity is the tree peony, which hits up to 5 feet tall on woody stems. It has spectacularly rich colors. Fern-leafed peonies are also becoming more popular; they have delicately-fringed leaves and a mid-spring bloom time, right before the more common, glossy-leaved peonies.
There are over 500 varieties of peonies. Select by color and blooming period, which can stretch from mid-spring to midsummer.
Care:
The peony does best in areas where winter temperatures drop to near or below zero in well-drained, slightly acidic soil. Give peonies at least 6 hours of sun a day in your flower garden or they may not bloom much. Fertilize and mulch peonies in early spring. Fertilize again halfway through the growing season. Keep plants well-watered during the summer. Remove mulch before first frost and cut stems to three inches after foliage dies in fall. Apply a light mulch at the very beginning of the winter; heavy mulches can cause diseases to arise. Some peonies may need staking. Ants, which are common on the plants, do no harm.
Planting:
Plant in full sun to partial shade in well-drained soil enriched with compost, in late summer or early fall. The eyes (pinkish buds on top of the root) should be 1 to 2 inches below the soil surface. Space plants 36 inches apart. Division is often unnecessary but may be done on mature plants in fall.
Over 40 Peony to choose from at: peonygarden.com
Christ's Cross
pelargonium pelatum
Colors - Cherry, pink, salmon, scarlet, white, red and mix.
Flowering period - Mid June to mid October.
Height - Grows 12" to 14" tall
Features - Ivy shaped leaves, trailing growth.
Soil - Tolerant of all soil conditions.
Spacing - Plant 12" to 18" apart.
Tips - Moderate frost tolerance. Pinching results in bushier plants. Cut back stems to ground level in fall.
Uses - Use in hanging pots or for ground cover.
A very profuse bloomer, it begins just 3 1/2 months from sowing and continues all summer and into fall, with bushy 12-inch plants bearing loads of bloom-heavy stems. The flower heads are less tightly-held than those of traditional Geraniums--they tumble and hang in a loose, airy fashion that accentuates the number of blooms. This mix contains many shades of red, pink, lavender, blush-white, and burgundy.
Unique and so easy to care for, Summer Showers belongs on the blazing patio or beneath the front windows, where its glory can be enjoyed over the very long bloom season. Easy to start from seed indoors in late winter or outdoors in early spring, it blooms all summer and may winter over indoors. Position in full sun and well-drained soil. Pkt is 5 seeds. Seeds Item # 3645
Geranium Summer Showers Hybrid Mix, from: http://www.parkseed.com
Penstemon
Perennial, USDA Zones: 3 - 9
Light: sun; light shade in Zones 8 - 9
Height: 1 to 6 feet, Width: 10 to 24 inches
Flower Colors: shades of pink, blue, red, white; red-purple leaves on some varieties
Beginning flowering in late spring and continuing through summer, this plant produces attractive spikes of tubular flowers in pink, blue, lavender, white, or shades of red. Some penstemons are good choices for wildflower meadows, while others are suited to perennial borders in the flower garden. Penstemons often last just 3 or 4 years and need excellent drainage, but when well-suited to the site (they're particularly good in the West), they can be a flower garden staple.
Care:
Plant in full sun or partial shade in moist to sandy, gritty, very well-drained soil. Good drainage is essential so a slope or raised bed is best. Do not overwater. Cut back faded flower stalks for possible rebloom. Gravel is an ideal mulch for this plant.
Planting:
Set out established plants in spring, spacing about 1 foot apart. Division of established clumps is possible but difficult because clumps often become woody.
Available from White Flower Farm, Penstemon margarita and Penstemon sour grapes
Christ's Hair
Phyllitis scolopendrium christata
Evergreen. Medium green fronds are strap or tongue shaped (not divided at all).
Shade to part shade.
Ht 30cm. Fronds with crested or forked tips.
Available at: http://www.thimblefarms.com/98ferntf.html, and http://www.lazyssfarm.com
Jacob's Ladder and Ladder to
Heaven
Polemonium caeruleum
This is a little woodland wildflower is also known as Greek valerian. It forms little clumps that can be divided periodically. The polemoniums are related to the phloxes, cobaeas, and gilias. There are many species known in flower gardens.
Worth a place in the flower garden, as it is a true perennial.
Available at: http://www.bluestoneperennials.com/b/bp/POBRP.html
Solomon's Seal
Polygonatum biflorum
A graceful plant with delicate greenish bell shaped flowers which hang from arching stems. Flowers in May, it likes 10% - 70% shade and a rich moist woods soil.
Its stems are 1-3 feet long but is usually only about a foot off the ground.
Plant about an inch deep in rich woods soil. Solomon's-Seal is native
Available at: http://www.sandmountainherbs.com/root/solomon's_seal.html
Fern of God
Pteridium aqulinum
The biggest French fern: leaves up to 2 m tall on a far creeping rhizome.
Growth in spring, fructification in summer but often sterile, leaves disappearing after the first frosts. Found in open woods, moors, clearings; up to an elevation of 2000 m
Considered valuable during the Middle Ages because it was used to pay rents.
Used as roofing thatch and as fuel when a quick hot fire was desired. The ash was used as a source of potash in the soap and glass industry until 1860 and for making soap and bleach. The rhizomes were used in tanning leathers and to dye wool yellow.
Bracken still used for winter livestock bedding in parts of
Wales since it is more absorbent, warmer, and easier to handle than straw. Also
used as a green mulch and compost. Both fronds and rhizomes have been used in
brewing beer, and rhizome starch has been used as a substitute for arrowroot.
Bread can be made out of dried and powered rhizomes alone or with other flour.
American Indians cooked the rhizomes, then peeled and ate them or pounded the
starchy fiber into flour. In
Powdered rhizome has been considered particularly effective against parasitic worms. American Indians ate raw rhizomes as a remedy for bronchitis. Bracken fern has been found to be mutagenic and carcinogenic in rats and mice, usually causing stomach or intestinal cancer. It is implicated in some leukemias, bladder cancer, and cancer of the esophagus and stomach in humans. All parts of the plant, including the spores, are carcinogenic, and face masks are recommended for people working in dense bracken. The toxins in bracken fern pass into cow's milk. The growing tips of the fronds are more carcinogenic than the stalks. If young fronds are boiled under alkaline conditions, they will be safer to eat and less bitter.
Toxicity:
Known to be poisonous to livestock throughout the
All parts of brackenfern,
including rootstocks, fresh or dry leaves, fiddleheads and spores, contain
toxic compounds, and are poisonous to livestock and humans. Consumption of brackenfern causes vitamin B1 deficiency in horses, and
toxins can pass into the milk of cattle. Young leaves of brackenfern
have been used as a human food source, especially in
Facts and Folklore:
It was once thought that, if the spores of the brackenfern were gathered on St. John's Eve, it would make the possessor invisible. In the 17th century, live brackenfern was set on fire in hopes of producing rain.
Hardy to USDA Zone 3 (average minimum annual temperature -40ºF)
Characteristically found on soils with medium to very rich nutrients. Cultivated and shaded plants produce fewer, thinner but larger fronds than open-grown plants. Roots thin, black, brittle extending from the rhizome to over 20" inches into the soil.
Brackenfern is a large, coarse, perennial fern that has almost horizontal leaves and can grow 1½ to 6½ feet tall (sometimes up to 10 feet). Unlike our more typical broadleaf perennials, this primitive perennial lacks true stems. Each leaf arises directly from a rhizome (horizontal underground stem), and is supported on a rigid leaf stalk. In addition, brackenfern does not produce flowers or seeds. Instead, it reproduces by spores and creeping rhizomes. This species often forms large colonies. Root system - The black, scaly, creeping rhizomes (horizontal underground stems) are ½ inch thick, and can grow as much as 20 feet long and 10 feet deep. Stout, black, wide-spreading roots grow sparsely along the rhizomes.
Seedlings & Shoots - The curled leaves (fiddleheads) emerging from rhizomes in the spring are covered with silvery gray hair.
Leaves - The leaf stalk supports a broad (3 feet long, 3 feet wide), triangular, dark green, leathery and coarse-textured leaf that often bends nearly horizontal. The leaf is divided into 3 parts, 1 terminal and 2 opposite. Each of the leaf parts is triangular and composed of numerous oblong, pointed leaflets, which are in turn composed of narrow, blunt-tipped subleaflets.
Fruits & Seeds - A continuous line of spore cases (spore-producing structures) is formed along the underside edge of leaflets, but the spore cases are partially or completely covered by inrolled leaf margins and are difficult to see. Spore cases produce minute, brown spores.
Spores of brackenfern are produced August through September. Brackenfern is one of the earliest ferns to appear in spring or after a fire. It sometimes forms large colonies of nearly solid stands. In the fall, it is one of the first plants to be killed by frost, resulting in large patches of crisp, brown foliage.
Brackenfern is resistant to many herbicides and is tolerant of various forms of mechanical control. However, effective control has been obtained by repeated removal of aboveground growth, which eventually exhausts the food reserves in the rhizomes.
Distinguished from other large
Fossil evidence suggests that bracken fern has had at least 55 million years to evolve and perfect antidisease and antiherbivore chemicals. It produces bitter tasting sesquiterpenes and tannins, phytosterols that are closely related to the insect moulting-hormone, and cyanogenic glycosides that yield hydrogen cyanide (HCN) when crushed. It generates simple phenolic acids that reduce grazing, may act as fungicides, and are implicated in bracken fern's allelopathic activity. Severe disease outbreaks are very rare in bracken fern. Grows best on deep, well-drained soils with good water-holding capacity, and may dominate other vegetation on such sites.
Since ancient times, it was considered a plant with special powers. Carried, the fern fronds offered protection from witches. The stipe (leaf stem) cut obliquely near the rhizome shows a pattern in the shape of the Greek X (chi) the initial of Christ. Witches were said to detest the fern and flee at its sight. John Gerard (1597) and Linnaeus both thought the pattern more shaped like an eagle with wings spread. Aquilinum is Latin for eagle.
Like all ferns, female fern reproduces by spores. Not understanding the reproduction of ferns, people thought the minute dots 'fern seeds'. It was believed that the 'seeds' of female ferns were only visible on St. John's Eve. If one could gather the fronds at the precise moment that John the Baptist was born, the 'fern seeds' conferred invisibility upon the collector. Available at: http://www.scottbrothersnursery.com/ferns.htm