Volunteers

My mother called plants that came up on their own without being planted "volunteers." Maybe it's a widespread usage, but I've not heard it anywhere but from my mother. She used to tell a story about an unmarried, dim-witted woman who got pregnant. Someone asked her who the father was, and she said she didn't know, it just volunteered. Hmmm. Anyway, I've had some interesting volunteers this year. Click on any of the images to get an enlarged view.

First all the zinnias in the birdbath bed volunteered from last year's plants. When I dead-headed the blossoms, I threw them into the bed, and this spring, guess what. I had beau coups zinnias that came up on their own and I had to thin them out ruthlessly--and they were pretty true to those I planted last year, plus a few I didn't remember, like a pure white one that I'm going to keep seed from. Here's this year's zinnias in the birdbath bed.

















In spite of the urban legend that you can't transplant zinnias, I even transplanted some of my volunteers to pots. Here's a picture of a pot of zinnias that share the space with a rooted coleus.





























And on the right is another pot of transplanted volunteer zinnias sharing a pot with a volunteer ilex of some unknown variety that volunteered in the pot two years ago.












In addition, I've had a few others:

Last year I had red salvia in two pots that I put pink geraniums in this year. I'm pretty "cheap" by nature, so I reused the dirt in the pots. Guess what, I had red salvia come up in both pots to compete with the geraniums. I didn't think the red looked good with the pink, so after I dead-headed the geraniums , I let the salvia bloom. Then when the geraniums started to bloom again, I dead-headed the salvia. Pesto!! double duty pots that are alernately red and pink.

Here on the right are the pots in their "pink Phase."



























Although not strictly a "volunteer" I have a new spout coming up from my yucca. Here 'tis.





















And also, not strictly a volunteer, but a surprise anyway, I have a caladium coming up in a hanging basket of verbena. In early spring (April) I planted several caladium tubers in pots, but I either planted them too deep or upside down, a common mistake I make. Telling top from bottom of a caladium tuber for me is like telling the sex of baby chicks--I'm at sea. Anyway, I fished most of the caladiums out of the pots and planted them in the ground in front of some coleus I rooted from a mother plant I got last year and wintered over. It's a wonderful plant by the way, grows like wild fire, roots like the dickens, and never puts up those annoying coleus "flowers." Here's the mother coleus.




















Here's the bed with the caladium and rooted coleus.



















And here is a picture of the caladium in the verbena pot:
























And finally, here's a pine seedling in it's second year that volunteered in the yucca pot. I transplanted it this year to a pot of its own, which it's sharing temporarily with white and red verbena and a kalanchoe I'm rooting. My goodness how I love to root stuff! Such power!