THIS AND THAT

Greg Coppa shares another batch of homegrown tips

THIS IS ONE of my occasional collections of recent gardening-related observations, including some updates on past speculations.

QUICK PIC!

How often have you missed taking a beautiful photograph of a garden specimen in full flourish? Since most of us constantly carry our mobile phones, we can no longer use the excuse that we didn't have a camera.

I drove to a friend's house last summer and as I walked up the path to her door I caught sight of a striking and spectacular large red allium (Allium karataviense) at peak bloom. My friend's yard is surrounded by a tall oak canopy capable of blotting out a good deal of sunlight at certain times of the year. Somehow, a narrow, bright shaft of late afternoon, rose-tinged light materialized and illuminated this red globe in such a way that it made it look truly incandescent against a dark forest background. I rushed to Linda's door, knocked and when she answered I quickly explained the breathtaking sight being displayed in her garden. Alas, in the three or four minutes it took for me to do that, the lighting dynamics completely changed and the otherworldly image, the likes of which I will probably never see again, disappeared.

Had I taken the photo as soon as I could have, it easily would have been chosen as a cover shot for a future Horticulture magazine. The lesson is take the photo first, and then quickly summon your friend to see the subject live!

THE POTTED POND

Periodically I have to muck out a more than two-decade-old fish pond/water garden made as a father-and-son Cub Scout project out of a 20-gallon plastic storage container. Both the muck and the sediment-laden water associated with it make a good nitrogen-rich fertilizer for some adjacent plants that thrive on such, including elephant ear and coleus.