Love That Licorice ( and the Toad, too)

It’s fashionable to hate annuals, particularly common annuals like the licorice plant ( Helichrysum petiolare)  that’s spilling along here in front of the clematis. But as stepdaughter Celia says ” Phooey on that.” Better to embrace everything good, no matter what its status, and if anybody gives you any lip you can resort to name dropping and say you’re just following the example of the late, great Christopher Lloyed, 
who scandalized the elite gardening world when he ripped out his famous ( and historically important) rose garden at Great Dixter to  put in an eye-popping carnival of cannas, dahlias, zinnias and other déclassé denizens of the Too Loud To be Cool school. 

Merits of H. petiolare: It grows quickly; bugs don’t bother it; it’s reasonably drought tolerant – always a lovable trait in a plant that looks best bursting out of its pot – and it’s beautiful in all lights, shimmering silver over gray-green from foggy dawn through sun blasted mid day to the last blue in the evening.

The pot next to the clematis is perched in an iron pot stand. This one was sitting on the ground which is why it has a toad (also love them toads) in it.