{"id":2999,"date":"2020-03-09T15:38:25","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T23:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2999"},"modified":"2020-03-09T15:38:25","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T23:38:25","slug":"shamrocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/shamrocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Shamrocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shamrock<\/a>Cold, rainy days on the edge of spring are a big challenge.\u00a0 My gardener\u2019s heart wants to be outside, clearing debris, uncovering the green shoots and pruning the roses.\u00a0 Common sense says that the beds are muddy, the leaves and debris are wet, and the return on garden effort will be minimal.\u00a0 I could clean tools, or even better, clean my house, but that sounds about as appealing as onion grass in a sleet storm.\u00a0 The only viable coping strategy is a trip to the garden center.\u00a0 Last week I opted for that form of salvation.<\/p>\n

The trip was a success and raised my spirits.\u00a0 The garden center greenhouse was warm, humid and full of color and greenery.\u00a0 The first primroses of the season were on the pallets, as were a plethora of orchids.\u00a0 Even the succulents looked lively.\u00a0 I could have opted to spend half an hour soaking up the comforting atmosphere and call it a good day, but I felt compelled to take comfort one step further and buy something.\u00a0 St. Patrick\u2019s Day is right around the corner, which must be why I skipped the orchids, primroses and exuberant African violets and went straight for the shamrocks.\u00a0 Even if those particular hothouse shamrocks were completely unrelated to the genus Trifolium, which is home to common field clover and the rare four-leaf clover, the purchase felt right for the season.<\/p>\n

My new shamrock is a variety of Oxalis triangularis with big, bold shamrock leaves, each composed of three triangular segments.\u00a0 When you look at the whole plant, the leaves look more like a flock of butterflies than a patch of clover, but no matter.\u00a0 The overall effect is gorgeous.<\/p>\n

I bought an unlabeled cultivar that features vivid dark purple leaves and dainty, pinkish-white flowers shaped like elongated bells. The leaves, which sprout atop wiry stems, have just a hint of lighter purple at the heart of each one, and are at least equal in beauty to the flowers.\u00a0 Rising in a mound that reaches eight inches over the top of the six-inch diameter pot, my new shamrock plant makes a beautiful spectacle of itself.<\/p>\n

Ornamental oxalis like mine are part of the large Oxalidaceae family, home to at least 700 species, mostly native to South Africa and parts of South America. \u00a0The culinary and medicinal herb sorrel, renowned as a spring tonic and sometime soup ingredient, is related.\u00a0 The sour taste of sorrel comes from the oxalic acid in the leaves, which is also present in shamrock foliage.\u00a0 If you have a cat, dog or other pet that likes to nibble on foliage, keep the plants out of the pet\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

My purple-leafed shamrock is only one of the choices available to house plant lovers.\u00a0 Oxalis tetraphylla \u2018Iron Cross\u2019 features a four-leafed configuration.\u00a0 Each green leaf bears a dark, maroon blotch at the base, which morphs into a cross shape when joined with the other three leaves.\u00a0 It is quite striking.\u00a0 \u2018Charmed Jade\u2019 is another Oxalis triangularis variety, with three-leafed, silvery-green foliage and pink flowers.<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine anything more dramatic than the purple-leafed oxalis, but Oxalis spiralis \u2018Aurea\u2019, with its green, yellow and apricot clover-like foliage paired with yellow flowers is downright flashy.<\/p>\n

Ornamental oxalis varieties grow from potato-like tubers and are tender in cold winter climates.\u00a0 The shamrock that I bought last week in full bloom will eventually drop its petals and leaves and go into dormancy.\u00a0 When that happens, I will probably forget everything I know and give in to an orgy of guilt over killing the plant.\u00a0 Then sense will reassert itself and I will remember that this dormancy cycle is normal for shamrocks and may happen two or more times during the course of a year.\u00a0 If your lovely shamrock goes dormant, the key is to stay calm and carry on.\u00a0 Stop watering and fertilizing until new growth appears, at which time you should resume the normal care regime, using a balanced houseplant fertilizer diluted according to manufacturer\u2019s directions.<\/p>\n

When warm weather rolls around, your plant can go outside in a partly shaded location.\u00a0 Keep the soil moist, but not waterlogged and be sure to return the plant to the house when night temperatures begin to fall into the fifties.<\/p>\n

Ornamental shamrocks may or may not bring you the luck of the Irish, but they will certainly improve your windowsills or other sunny indoor spaces.\u00a0 Many garden centers and other retailers carry oxalis now, just in time for St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t find one locally, go to Logee\u2019s, 141 North Street, Danielson, CT 06239; (860) 774-8038; www.logees.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free print catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cold, rainy days on the edge of spring are a big challenge.\u00a0 My gardener\u2019s heart wants to be outside, clearing debris, uncovering the green shoots and pruning the roses.\u00a0 Common sense says that the beds are muddy, the leaves and debris are wet, and the return on garden effort will be minimal.\u00a0 I could clean … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[492,2270,2268,2267,936,2266,2269,2271],"class_list":["post-2999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-houseplants","tag-oxalidaceae-family","tag-oxalis-spiralis","tag-oxalis-tetraphylla","tag-purple-leaves","tag-shamrocks-oxalis-triangularis","tag-sorrel-family","tag-st-patricks-day-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3001,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}