A nifty summer blue to lift the winter blahs!

Thymbra capitata

As I look past the last decade or so, there are some horticultural mysteries that have perplexed me. Thymbra capitata was the star of my midsummer visit to Greece in 2015. It had some pretty stiff competition with the likes of Jankaea heldreichii and Viola delphinantha, I warrant you: but these and a wealth of other treasures were blooming only at high elevations. In the lowlands, this stunning shrublet glowed lavender blue on cliffs all over Western Turkey, Mainland Greece and of course Crete, where most of these were photographed.

The mystery? Why isn't this in MY garden..or in gardens generally. Why are not strident efforts being made to locate high elevations forms (it grew everywhere it seemed) and bring this to our Western rock gardens in particular, where a glowing lavender blue mound of aromatic glory would be so welcome!

It will remain forever a mystery to me how Humanity is so terribly obsessed with sports, celebrities (Jennifer Lopez butt is big, but cute I grant you), with snazzy cars and umpteen thousand Netflicks series that put me into a coma of boredom. Okay, that's a lie: I've never watched them long enough to be truly comatose! Why would anyone pursue any of these frivolities when there are luminous mints like this yearning for our gardens. For my garden anyway!

This (above) and the one below were taken at over 2000m above the Omalos plateau in Crete: they have to be tough as nails--the moundy thing next to them (Astragalus angustifolius) is easy peasy to grow...surely a frickin' thyme (for that's what Thymbra basically is) can't be any harder!

Forgive me as I hurl one after another of these pictures at you. I am a sucker for blue--and I grant you this isn't true gentian blue. It's not a sky blue or cobalt or some other purish shade of blue blue. It's lavender blue, which is FINE by me. I love lavender. Most campanulas, wild irises and a goodly number of other mints come in this shade of blue-lavender. And I love it. It's the blue of distant mountains silhouetted, the blue of smoke from a campfire--the blue of memory and nostalgia. I'm pretty sure this was the blue that A.E. Houseman imagined in "A Shropshire Lad, XL"

Into my heart an air that kills  
  From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
  What spires, what farms are those?  

I couldn't resist photographing this every time I saw it: and I saw it a lot! These are by no means the only pictures I took!

 

Another shade of blue: the thymbra was growing with Cichorium spinosum on many occasions. Although I've never grown the thymbra, I have grown the spiny chickory in the past but not for many years. I know both of these would THRIVE in my new crevice garden...

But they are missing in action. Just plain WRONG!