Garden Favorites part 1

Here's one of my favorite combinations in the garden: my lovely Russian Blue Sam with lady's mantle. Don't they look good together?

Lady's mantle is a very beautiful and reliable plant. It's hardy, not fussy, grows quickly and seeds itself freely so you get many baby plants for free. They do well in a sunny or semi-shady spot. It's also a good plant for keeping weeds down. IMO you can never have too much lady's mantle.

The leaves which have a very nice roundish shape are incredibly beautiful early in the morning when they have little diamonds sprinkled all over them. Dewdrops or raindrops on lady's mantle is a sight for sore eyes.

The flowers are like little clouds of greenish yellow flowers and they flower for a very long time.

They are also very good for cutting and last at least a week in the vase. They go with almost anything. I personally like the combination of pink roses with lady's mantle.

Here I've combined lady's mantle with white astilbe on the left and chives in front. I like to use herbs in my borders too, many of them are very pretty and attract lots of bees and butterflies which is good for pollination.

When the lady's mantle has finished flowering you cut it down to the ground (the leaves and flowers both) and within a week or 2 the lady's mantle has bounced back and has made lots of new leaves. Later on it will start to flower for the second time. This plant really earns it's keep.

And the Russian Blue cats? Well they are a joy to have around and as they hardly shed any fur, they're low maintenance. The Russian Blue looks good all year round because of their beautiful silvery blue coat that sparkles in the sunlight and their deep green almond shaped eyes. The RB is very sweet tempered, generally speaking very healthy and are wonderful companions. They come, like the lady's mantle, highly recommended too although on this one, the gorgeous Camelot's Sam Bucus, I have first dibs.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her. Michel de Montaigne 1533-1592