Yardflower.com

I’m a lazy composter.

I let piles of leave lie around and rot in place.  When I was a kid, my Icey called the resulting  rich brown earthy mixture “leaf mold”.   I can assure you that leaf mold is fine stuff.

As for my kitchen scraps, I just dump them in a pile and ever so often add a layer of leaves.

Every time I do a nursery cleanup I dump pots of dead soil in.

Here is the lovely lupine in my compost pile. Note the eggshells and coffee filters in the background.

Occasionally I also throw expired seed packets, the residue after I have cleaned seed and moldy bird seed in with the veggie trimmings, eggshells and coffee filters.

As a result, I sometimes have some interesting volunteers in the old compost pile.

Last year I had a dense stand of black oil sunflower plants.  The bunnies loved them.  Then a coral bean (Erythrina herbaceae) popped up.   I was excited to have such a cool prairie plant in the compost.

This winter I have been noticing several plants that are definitely lupines.

I sent pictures out to several of my plant friends.  The consensus was that the plants were Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis).

But yesterday, I noticed that one was blooming.  It is a pale lavender – not the deep blue color I would expect from a bluebonnet.

I’ll send the picture out again to see if anyone has other ideas.  I suppose it could be an unusual color form of the Texas bluebonnet.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going around humming a Willis Allen Ramsey song from my old college days called “Geraldine and the Honeybee”.   It goes like this:

“Geraldine chrysanthemine prettiest li’l flower that I ever seen
She’s a friend of mine; she’s a friend of mine

Petal chile growin’ wild, even tho she’s livin’ on a compost pile
She’s my glitter and my gold; she’s my glitter and my gold

Oh Geraldine have you forgotten
Baby I have come for your sweet pollen

I can’t wait to pollinate come on pretty baby let’s celebrate
The warm and the livin’, the takin’ and the givin’

Love ya high, sting ya low, buzz ya everywhere that you’ll let me go
Let me go my way, mama, let me go my way

Oh Geraldine have you forgotten
Baby I have come for your sweet pollen

I might go crazy, I might go blind I’m never goin’ back to that honeysuckle vine
Long as you’re alive, I’ll buzz around your hive

Geraldine chrysanthmine prettiest li’l flower that I ever seen

She’s my honeydew baby, honey do me again”