First the found. It turns out to be a good idea to check your local flower shop’s trash, especially when they’re about to close up for vacation. Ours is about two minutes walking from home. One night we had already ‘done’ a complete block in the other direction without seeing anything interesting, when the BF suddenly ‘remembered’ he had seen something that afternoon. So I followed him to the corner where the shop is. Next to the underground ‘dumpsters’ were five or six trays with small pots of two kinds of plants. Other people had apparently already made their choice, because not all were full. I wanted to do the same and take 2-3 of each, but the BF went: You want those? And picked up a complete tray and walked off before I could answer. So I thought why not and took the fullest tray of the other plant.
At home I counted 24 plants. What to do with all of them? The red flower is obviously an indoor plant. My windowsills were still empty, so I put them in rows of six, all in (found) white pots, which looks quite chic. Unfortunately the flowers are turning brown now, so it’s too late to take pics. Hopefully they’ll grow back next year.
The other one looked more like an outdoor plant to me, so I put them in pots all over the garden. Then after a couple of weeks they surprised me with the cutest violet flowers!
Two more free plants I didn’t show yet, because they had no flowers yet:
Geraniums are really too easy to grow from cuts. Just cut off a 10-15 cm branch from your mum’s, aunt’s, neighbour’s or friend’s plant and stick it into the ground. Keep it fairly wet for the first few weeks and voila: They grow quickly.
An enthusiastic for the plant spread Alcea Rosea (Hollyhock) through the neighbourhood years ago and they’re even all over town now. They grow in window gardens and even around trees. I just had to take some seeds to have my own. This colour was a surprise. I hope to get more colours and other varieties next year.
Look at this webpage: http://www.malvaceae.info/Genera/Alcea/gallery.html
All these varieties can be found in the streets around my house. It’s a pretty sight in summer here.
These were taken by an amateur photographer in the streets of the centre of Amsterdam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennethverburg/archives/date-posted/2006/06/30/
1 comment:
I never thought of doing this. I can't wait until summer now. I'm going to look in our garden centers trash area too!!!
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