The Daily Dig

Can I just say how much I love the internet! Trying to figure out the name of a plant can be as easy as posting a photo with a plea for help, and as sure as I am sitting here someone will have the answer lickity split.  That was how it worked out today, and so I'd like to send a big internet *thanks* out to Susan Wall for knowing that she had seen "Oscularia deltoides" the plant in question at one of my favorite bay area nursery's, Annies Annuals.

It was two days ago that I first noticed it beginning to bloom so I grabbed my iPhone and with my Hipstamatic camera, John S lens, and Ina's 1969 film I got these shots of the plant I now know, thanks to Susan, as Oscularia deltoides.

This is a really big deal for me since we have had this plant for years and have never known its name, the only thing we knew about it was that it always gives us a few little pink flowers every year that we really enjoy.  Over the years it had dwindled to a twig having been abused in a very small urn with a bunch of other succulents all of whom never did very well... I planted what was left alive in the ground.

Oscularia deltoides is an easy-to-grow, succulent ground cover and it looks great in water-wise gardens.  A trailing perennial shrublet with interesting three-angled gray-green leaves that become tinged with red during the dry season, its small pink flowers are lightly scented and the plant is reported to thrive in its native habitat living on sandstone rocks along a range of South African mountains from Ceres to George.

Oscularia deltoides does not like competition from other plants and will tolerate an occasional very mild frost.  Plants can be cultivated from cuttings and does very well in sunny rockeries and embankments. It is best to root cuttings in sand but can also be planted directly in the soil.

Not knowing any of the above at the time of replanting, I put the last remaining bit of living plant into the ground along the rock wall in the back garden about a year and half ago and look what I have now :)

The plant has come over the edge of the wall like water in slow motion topped with little swirling pink flowers. The plant is covered in buds, these being the first to bloom. In the past we never got many blooms so you can imagine we are looking forward to the rest of this years show of flowers.