This is a ground cover I have long been attempting to grow in my own yard. I’m sure I have bought at least four of these plants in the past and I am happy, very happy, to report that this fifth attempt is going absolutely gang busters*. This time I have planted this in our sideyard where it is very shady int he winter and gets partial sun in the summer.
Fuchsia procumbens close up with small heart-shaped leaves and a funky flower.
This plant is a low creeping ground cover with small heart-shaped leaves and a super cool and really weird flower. The flower has no petals but has a yellowish green tube with yellow and red and purple sepals. I have read that this plant does produce edible berries but mine has not done so.
I bought this at Annies Annuals, now Curious Flora. I’m not sure if they are currently growing this plant. I was interested to read on the wikipedia page that this is a coastal plant native to New Zealand.
I _think_ this is rooting as it creeps along. You can see in the second picture above that it is happily trying to crawl up the house. One of the reasons I am so hot for this plant is that I am a big believer in “green mulch”. That is, using low plants to cover the mulch in a landscape as another layer of soil moisture retention. This can also help with soil erosion and provide habitat, etc. And really, I just don’t love the look of landscape that ends up being large swaths of bare mulch.
*Sometimes I find myself using an expression and then thinking ‘why did I say that? what does that even mean?!’.
Here is what Dictionary.com says about it.
like gangbusters, with great speed, intensity, vigor, impact, or success.
The software market was growing like gangbusters. The hockey team came on at the beginning of the season like gangbusters.
go gangbusters, to be extremely successful.
The movie went gangbusters.
Another recent thing I said was ‘Can we swing it?’ and then I wondered why the heck I said that. I wonder if this is from baseball.
1. informal To make (something) happen or come to pass; to manage or arrange (something) successfully.