{"id":15455,"date":"2026-05-13T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=15455"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:13:43","slug":"surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/surprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One thing I love about plants – they are full of surprises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This valerian popped up at the edge of the driveway. It seems to be spreading a little. It has surprised me in past years and continues to surprise every spring. It starts out as a small rosette and develops a tall stem with flowers on top. It’s very common around here growing in fields here and there. I’m delighted its in my yard and I want to transplant it into the circle garden eventually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Valerian <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I found this sunflower growing in the hoophouse and transplanted it into the garden. The seed must have hitched a ride with the black-eyed susans I dug out of the community garden and moved to the hoophouse temporarily. It’s been in all three garden spots! Last year we had a great big tall sunflower in the community garden and I hope this one has the same genes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunflower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These two little blue flowers were so eye-catching out front. I don’t think they have been there before. No idea where they came from. My mother used to call this “scilla.” There was a meadow of it in the side yard of the house I grew up in, a blue carpet in the springtime. It’s also known as Siberian squill. I hope it spreads!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing I love about plants – they are full of surprises. This valerian popped up at the edge of the driveway. It seems to be spreading a little. It has surprised me in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[383],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plants"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/img_0827.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15458,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455\/revisions\/15458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}