Magenta Spreen Lambsquart

Dave and I went to breakfast on the high street yesterday morning. Along the way, we passed this beautiful plant growing beneath a street tree. I took a photo and ran it through my plant identifier app. The answer came back "tree spinach," aka "magenta spreen lambsquart," which gave us a good laugh.

"That would make a great password," Dave said. "No one would ever guess it."

Turns out "magenta spreen" and "giant lambsquarters" are common names for Chenopodium giganteum -- the app somehow combined and truncated them. It's also called "purple goosefoot" and "fat hen." It's an amaranth, a relative of quinoa.

We want to try it in the garden. It grows five feet tall, and you know how much I love my dinosaur plants! We might try to transplant this one, or we might wait to collect seeds. Like many amaranths they are apparently prolific re-seeders so we might have to keep them in check.

Anyway, we went to breakfast, and Olga came along. We tried to sit outside but in the early morning the breeze was still too chilly, so we moved indoors for our pastries and coffee at Gail's. As the hours passed the temperatures warmed and by afternoon they were perfect, in the low 70's (F) with a partly cloudy sky.

The Solomon's seal sawfly larvae are back on the Solomon's seal. I'm leaving them for now. Biodiversity and all that. I used to worry that they'd kill the plant and I'd try to remove them, but they reappear every year and the plant always bounces back. Cycle of life!

I did some routine garden trimming, mostly deadheading and cutting blackberries out of the flower beds. I also had a Facetime call with my brother so I could fill him in on my retirement plans. He's retired already himself -- and he's younger than I am -- so he wholeheartedly approves!

It continues to be a banner year for ladybirds/ladybugs. Here's a little video to show you the many stages I'm finding -- larvae, pupae and mature adults, some of them just emerged. Oh, and a bumblebee, busy on our Turkish sage (Phlomis). I like the way it has to lift the lid on each flower to get to the good stuff.

Many years ago I plucked this lantern from someone's trash and brought it back to our garden. It's been hanging there ever since and it had become filthy, and yesterday I almost threw it out. But then I scrubbed it up with an old toothbrush and it looks respectable again.

Last night we had leftover pasta bolognese and I set up a table in the garden so we could dine al fresco. We put a candle in the lantern and set it in the middle of the table atop a colorful tablecloth. It all would have been quite idyllic except that Olga CANNOT tolerate us sitting in the garden if we're not paying attention to her. She barks incessantly. It was a noisy meal.