Our weed is a plant after all

I did a post a little while ago about what I thought was a pretty weed that had arrived on our front drive. A few days ago I phoned my mum and she told me that my uncle had identified it as a plant. My mum gave me it’s scientific name and I googled it for more information.

Here is the plant on our front drive

Here is the plant on our front drive

A closer look

A closer look

And a little closer

And a little closer

It’s scientific name is cymbalaria muralis. It has many common names such as:

ivy-leaved toadflax, kenilworth ivy, colseum ivy, mother of thousands, wanderingsailor or chaenohinum and blue dream.

It is an alpine rockery plant excellent for growing in between flagstones, crevices in walls, on rockeries, in gravel gardens, in containers or hanging baskets and in borders. It is easy to grow, takes little maintenance and self seeds.

All of this explains why it is thriving on neglect on our gravel drive.

It is a hardy evergreen and has a height and spread of eight by eight inches.

It has little scalloped leaves with tiny lilac-blue snapdragon like flowers. It has it’s heaviest blooms in spring but flowers all summer long.

So there you have it! I am so glad that we decided to keep it.

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2 Responses to Our weed is a plant after all

  1. Flock Mistress says:

    It’s pretty. Looks like it would do well in a rock garden or spilling over a rock wall. Course, my hens would eat it. Sigh…

    • My mum says she has seen it spilling over walls and now my uncle has given her some for her garden. Now that I know it’s a plant I am going to put a bit of it in the back garden.Hens do eat everything though as I will reveal in my next post.

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