Senior Moments

As you know, Betsy and I have many flowers in our yard — daffodils, tulips, iris, roses, lilies and daylilies.  But we also have some plants that don’t flower very much (no, I am not talking about the weeds in our flower beds!).

I grew up on a small farm in northern Indiana.  The topsoil was rich and about 18 inches (or more) deep.  Dad used to say that when we planted seed we had to jump back to keep from being knocked over the growing plant.

That certainly is not the situation here in Tennessee.  Don’t get me wrong — I like the mountains and our home.  But in some places there is solid rock about an inch below the surface.  We’ve worked around that by building some raised flower beds, but there are places in the yard where we have rock right under the surface and there’s not much we can do about it.

Except plant sempervivum (hen and chicks).  Sempervivum seem to thrive in the most impossible soil conditions, and they look good all year around.  We have several different varieties and various places around the yard.  Some are bicolor, like the picture above.  Others are a solid color.  The most common are green, but we also have several maroon or deep purple plants, as you can see in the picture below.