Cosmos Factory
Slowly I assert control over my yards, fore and aft. I’m conquering the weeds and preparing to put in some form of landscaping.
What I want is xeriscaping. Not just because it saves on water, although practically it’s a concern. I happen to think it looks cool.
What I’m not so clear on is: okay, how exactly does a xeric plant differ from a weed?
Case in point: I was surveying for a final season-ending orgy of weed-whacking when by the north front corner of the house I saw exploding from the tip of what I took to be a Noxious Weed a spectacularly beautiful blossom, with deep red-purple petals surrounding a bright yellow head.
Well, weed or not, I wasn’t purging it. It’s too dang pretty. One of the prettiest flowers I’ve seen, in fact. Moreover, as a couple days have passed, it’s been joined by similar blooms.
Driving back along Griegos from walks with Emma Dog (notice the subtle way I work her in here; she draws more traffic to the site than I do) I’ve noticed similar flowers blooming in a number of yards, some from pretty respectably-sized plants (mine are a tad on the, well, weedy side.) They’re obviously incorporated deliberately into designed xeriscapes, not just happy accidents like the ones by my house.
I looked for them in my sundry books on xeriscaping and couldn’t find them. Then I finally turned up my new copy of The New Mexico Gardener’s Guide: Revised Edition
And a couple/three pages into the listings I found myself staring right at the culprits. They’re Cosmos. Cosmos pinnatus, in polite company. Which these hardly are, to be sure.
How these beauties came to sprout in my somewhat blighted front yard is a mystery to me. But I’ll nurture them, and be sure to grow plenty of them deliberately next year.
I’ve been wondering what flowers I wanted to grow in the beds by the house and the fences. Now I know one for sure.
Indeed do many things come to pass.