I am an avid, but laissez-faire gardener. “If it lives – yeah! If it dies, it wasn’t meant to be.” My garden is full of plants with a wide variety of foliage and flowers. Some plants thrive, like penstemon red husker. I pull it out liberally, lest it take over my garden. Other things, like simple zucchini, thrive everywhere except my garden. I don’t take offense or fret. I simply enjoy what lives and try something else next year.
It is this philosophy that leads me to search for new plants. I peruse the internet and flip through gardening magazines to get idea. Sometimes, I find ones that are intriguing, but not an option for my garden. So what helps me decide if it is not an option? The list is pretty short: wrong growing zone, invasive, and poisonous to my pets. I do have a penchant for plants that will attract butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Because of this, we routinely are dive bombed by birds when lounging in the backyard. I don’t mind, I like to hear their chatter and watch them throughout the year.
This search for friendly plants led me to an interesting cultivar from Brazil that has been introduced to the US. It is known as Southern Star, Blue Flowered Milkweed or Tweedia, which is the common name for oxypetalum coerulea. It won’t grow in our area, but it caught my attention because Monarch butterflies like it! It has an adorable little flower.
This adorable oxypetalum flower is what inspired my latest quilt pattern – Oxypetalum. It features the Timeless Treasure’s “Tonga Tropical” collection, which has beautiful blues, yellows and greens. The pattern uses traditional piecing and is set on point. The block mimics the vine-like nature and small blue flowers of Oxypetalum.
We hope you will find the darling pattern as intriguing as we do. The pattern is currently available in our shop (retail and wholesale) and will be available in local quilt shops soon!
Happy Quilting!
Laureen