May 19, 2004

• UPDATE:
  WHY Pig Squeak?

  Okay,
  you guys caught me… I had intended to include my guess as to why this
  plant is called by that name, and then I neglected to do so.  I
  suppose it is because when the leaves rub together, they squeak. 
  Some other plants do that, too.  Notably, my favorite vegetable
  the artichoke is squeaky.  Did you know that’s how to tell if an
  artichoke in the store is fresh?  Give it a squeeze and if it
  squeaks it’s okay.  If it feels a little mushy and doesn’t make
  any noise, it’s ’round the bend.  Leave it there.

  There
  is probably no mystery to why I like these hardy semi-evergreen
  perennials.  You can see by the background in this shot I took
  today that spring greening isn’t very far along here.  The leaves
  of the pig squeak, Bergensia cordifolia, 
  are the first green I see every year (other than the sickly green of
  the ubiquitous moss).  As soon as the snow is gone, there it is in
  those three pots.  Some of the leaves turn a bronze-red in fall
  and die over the winter, but the youngest leaves stay green and go on
  to continue growing as soon as they emerge from the snow.

  At a time when the wild Rosa rugosa,
  the pink Sitka roses, are showing only last year’s red hips and a bit
  of new green foliage, the pig squeak has flowers opening.  The
  only other flowers showing out there now are those travesties of
  flowers, the pollen-spreading catkins on the trees.  These are not
  fully open yet, still mostly buds.  I’ll try and remember to get
  another pic later on when the leaves are deeper green and there are
  more flowers.

  That I have these plants at all is somewhat miraculous.  My garden
  at the old home place across the highway was all “practical”
  plants.  I worked very hard at digging a number of deep intensive
  beds in the gravel over there, and filling them with a mixture of peaty
  topsoil and manure I hauled in, and the sand I screened out of the
  gravel I’d dug up before turning the gravel into paths between the
  beds.  Under the circumstances, being the pragmatic ultra-Virgo I
  am, I didn’t want to waste any space at all on purely ornamental
  plants.  Everything there was either edible or medicinal, or had
  some other usefulness as a soil improver, bee-attractor, or companion
  plant.  That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of beauty for the
  eyes and nose in the garden.  Iris is medicinal, pansy and
  nasturtium are edible.  Meadowsweet attracts pollenators.

  Not long before we moved in here, I went on a garden tour held by the
  local garden club.  My friend Les was selling some potted
  perennials from his garden.  One pot was priced at only a buck
  because the pot was cracked.  After he told me how hardy pig
  squeak is and I’d seen the lovely flowers, I didn’t even give a thought
  to the plant’s usefulness.  I bought it.  I had not yet
  gotten the energy to plant it out into the garden before we moved, so
  the pig squeak and its cracked pot was the only plant I brought over
  here.  I’ve planted some seeds of various species since I’ve been
  here, but not dug up any perennials from the old place.  Twice
  since I’ve been here I’ve divided and repotted the pig squeak. 
  One of those pots is crowded now and due for more dividing this
  summer.  Maybe I’ll put some of it into the ground.  At first
  I thought we were only housesitting here, but it really does look as if
  we’re here to stay.
  

  

  • 2:26 am
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