Lovely Landscaping

The College of Agriculture has a distinct advantage when it comes to landscape design: it offers a landscape design major. That said, its landscaping efforts are beginning to pay off, as the Agriculture building looks as cute as can be at the moment. Here's why.

These pansies (Viola wittrockiana) have been in the greenhouse for a while, and they're some of my favorite ornamentals. There are all sorts of breeding tricks one can do with pansies, such as making them look like they have faces (kinda creepy), but I like the yellow and brown ones the best. My grandmother always used to plant pansies like this, so I guess I'm biased. But isn't this just precious?

The other impressive display outside the Ag building is the daffodils. These were planted last fall by students who were in the horticulture class I'm currently taking. I like the variation within the group. Wouldn't you love to sit at that bench and read while enjoying some tea? Fortunately, it's warm enough to do that now.

What specifically caught my eye was the variety with the dark orange petal. These aren't normally my favorites, but they do add interest to an otherwise uniform batch of daffodils.

Also outside the Ag building is a group of what I believe is forsythia. The small bushes are starting to bloom, but unevenly, and the result is pretty scraggly. If it shapes up soon, I'll go back and photograph that to round out the "yellow on yellow on yellow" theme the school is following.

What plants are impressing you this spring?

Next post: more spring developments.

P.S. An update on henbit: last night I ate some cooked henbit in beef ramen noodles, and it turned out very well. If you are cooking cup ramen, you can just add the henbit with the hot water. If you are cooking ramen on the stove, I recommend adding the henbit after it's cooked, so it will cook while you're waiting for the broth to cool.

I also ate some henbit (along with purple deadnettle, which is very similar and also edible) on a roast beef and muenster sandwich today. It tasted okay, but one of the plants made my throat feel strange for a while. The moral of this story is: if you're going to eat said plants, either chop them up raw into a salad or cook them (I've heard they're good cooked with a little bit of water, some butter, salt, and pepper).

Henbit: Bypassed Beauty

As promised, I am dedicating today's post to an underappreciate spring flower: henbit. Lamium amplexicaule is a naturalized broadleaf species, originally from Eurasia and North Africa. You may recognize it from just about everywhere you've ever been.

This common plant often becomes a noxious weed, though I'm not sure if this species is technically invasive. All the same, I wanted to write about it because it has truly beauteous coloration and flower formation. Its flowers almost resemble a tiny purple pitcher plant, as the fused corolla is long and narrow.

Another cool fact I just found while researching this overlooked plant (thanks Eat the Weeds!)  is that henbit is edible. It's actually a close relative of mint. Next time I pass by the photographed cluster, I'm going to have to try some (or, more likely, pick them all and have a salad). I always like plants better if they're edible. But for the purposes of this blog post, I just wanted to highlight henbit's striking colors and shapes.

Above everything else, seeing henbit means spring is on the way, and that's always encouraging. Have you ever been surprised at an edible plant? (I have--see my post on yuccas.) Have you ever discovered a cool plant that's been under your nose for years? Would you try eating henbit if you saw some?

Next post: a cheery spring display.