whirlygig

A long time ago I bought a Botanica Encyclopedia and spent many hours one winter browsing its pages, taking notes on plants and flowers I loved and drawing elaborate plans for gardens I never planted.  I planned a white garden with night-blooming nicotania, a Mary garden with white and blue flowers, cutting gardens and more rose gardens than you can imagine.  One flower that struck me immediately was the African Daisy cultivar, Osteospermum Whirlygig.  With its pinched petals, it looked like a flower from outer space.  At the time, the only place that sold this particular cultivar was a garden shop outside London.  I had an upcoming trip to London for my daughter’s high school graduation present and tried to scheme a way to get the seeds (bringing back a live plant through customs was not going to happen) while we were there, but there were other sights to see and things to do and it didn’t happen.

A couple of weeks ago, I found it at Home Depot.  You’d better believe, I’ll be saving these seeds.