Tax Day '09 Was Spent Gardening!

Last year our friend Dave was going to come visit and he was dying to have arugula salads so I planted a patch.

Well, he didn't get to come and I just let it grow. Here are this year's flowers from that original planting.

I've even used arugula flowers in a vase and they lasted for a week as cut stems.

Gourmet Sleuth says it is also called rocket, roquette, rugula and rucola. They also say it is an aphrodisiac.

Russell Studebaker, garden writer for the Tulsa World, gave us this sweet Columbine for the shade garden. He said it is a cross between two native varieties.

It's quite tall and hopefully it will scatter its seeds generously.

Last year when we had our Muskogee Garden Club plant swap, Karen Coker brought Iron Maiden Penstemon and I planted a few in different spots to see where they would prefer to be.
I think they all returned. The leaves are gorgeous and the plants should grow into magnificent specimens.
Penstemons are gradually moving into many areas of our garden. Here's a website dedicated to them, called Home of the Beardtongue.

The 50 Caladiums we started in pots over the winter are all in the ground as of this afternoon.

They should be quite a pretty upgrade for the area where we are in the hammocks in the evening. Of course I can't recall the variety since we bought them in December but they are one of the whites.