Too many sweets

[galadhir]

I have a friend who drinks meadowsweet tea for her headaches, and I was telling her that I had a patch of meadowsweet in the corner of my garden. She wanted to know what it looked like when it wasn't in a tea-bag, so I googled for a picture--

And I discovered that whatever that thing I had was, it was not meadowsweet.

I knew I'd been getting it confused with the sweet-cicely I have in a different spot. The sweet-cicely is a really nice edible perennial that tastes of aniseed and goes wonderfully in a summer salad, and I knew one was edible and the other wasn't.

After some head-scratching, I realized that the patch of spiky ground-cover with tiny white flowers and glossy radiate leaves was in fact sweet woodruff, which is fragrant and traditionally used to scent linen cupboards. Probably just as well that I had not tried to make medicinal tea from that one last year while it established.

I have some actual meadowsweet seedlings germinating on the window-ledge, and it's going to be way too confusing to have three 'sweet' plants. So in future, I'm going to call the sweet woodruff by one of its other names - lady's bedstraw. (It used to be used for stuffing the best mattresses because it smelled so beautiful.) My brain is not equipped to deal with all these sweets.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

The sheer number of similarly-named plants overwhelms my brain, lol. My mom always had beautiful gardens when I was a kid, and I used to remember almost everything she grew (and I know sweet woodruff was one!), but now my brain just freezes up when I try to keep them straight, lol.

I do very deeply hope to someday be in the position to have my own yard and garden (instead of a studio apartment without a balcony), and at that point I'll try again!

[galadhir]

Probably the problem is that I try to remember things by their common names instead of their scientific names. I'm sure their latin names are all very different, but I find it even harder to remember those. My mum used to be a great gardener too, although she loved flowers and I tend to try to grow edibles.

Can you manage window boxes? Or a chilli plant on a window-ledge? I have a pots of basil, chilli and aloe - for burns - on the kitchen window. That's very cheering :)

[mistressofmuses]

From a scientific standpoint, I do appreciate latin names for clarity, and the fact that it helps to avoid miscommunications based on similarity of or regional differences in common names.

But... I'm shit at remembering latin names, so I never use them unless I'm looking up care information or something, lol.

Sadly we don't have much direct light, and aren't allowed anything outside the window. I do have several decorative leafy houseplants, which always make me happy. But I may try a small selection of herbs at some point.

[galadhir]

For some reason I always kill houseplants. Anything that isn't fully hardy and able to survive on its own is not safe with me, so you're doing better than me already :)

[mistressofmuses]

I have the easiest, most tolerant houseplants, haha. Spiderplants are pretty hardy and bounce back easily from abuse. And I also have one that I think is a Peperomia scandens. The genus is sometimes called "radiator plants", but I've seen surprisingly little said about them for how damn easy and forgiving this plant has been to care for, haha. I have a post here about that one. So those are some good options, maybe!

[galadhir]

I do have a couple of spider plants, which live in the bathroom and just about survive the droughts in between the times I remember to water them. They look very sad, though, and that rebukes me.

[mistressofmuses]

I have several little spiderplant-lings rooted in water, because I never remember to buy new pots and soil to plant them in. They've been fine in water for years, but every once in a while I check on them and discover one is totally dry, which always makes me feel bad, haha. They do look pretty sad when they start to wilt, but generally perk back up pretty quickly.

[galadhir]

I do think it's bizarre that you can overwater a plant that will live in nothing but water perfectly happily. I grew some basil cuttings on my windowledge in jam-jars full of water, and they grew an amazing array of strong roots. And then I put them in soil and before I knew it they were dead from overwatering. It's entirely possible that overwatering is what's doing in the spider plant in the kitchen.

[mistressofmuses]

RIGHT?

I have never understood how something that is content to just live in a cup of water can then get mad at... *checks notes* getting too much water in its dirt.

I try to water once a week or so, which seems pretty good. It seems to usually be better to underwater than overwater. My plants are also clustered in a spot I have to walk past, so if they start to look droopy and sad I usually notice. (I can be prone to change-blindness, though, so I'm not always as good at noticing my everyday surroundings very well!)

[galadhir]

I'm going to have to get into the habit of watering all indoor plants on a specific day in the week. It's the only way I'll remember. If I can't do it on a strict schedule, I tend to do it either every day or never, neither of which are good :)

[mistressofmuses]

Having a set schedule for things definitely helps me! Otherwise I'm prone to the same thing - either all or nothing.