a french guest

I've got this lovely plant that's been sitting in a pot waiting for its hour for a number of years and now I've just planted it out.

The story of it is rather romantic. I received a shoot as an engagement present from a lovely Welsh lady whose campsite hubby and I were staying at when we got engaged. She got it from France while she was on her own honeymoon. She and her husband were visiting Monet's gardens where this plant grew in abundance and she said she just couldn't resist pinching a shoot.

As you can see in the photos it's light green with a white margin, and the new leaves that emerged there are plain light green. It's got strong wiry roots and I'd say it probably spreads mostly by root off-shoots. Which must mean it's invasive? So far as I can tell the leaves grow in rosettes, but as I say mine is quite small yet so i'm not sure what it would look and behave like on a bigger scale.

It's probably a ground cover plant and a shade lover, or at least the Welsh lady had it in a shady spot in her garden.

Any ideas?

 

OMG, that looks like a variegated form of ground elder. I'd keep your eye on that one.

 

Perhaps it came from the Château de Miserey instead?

 

Aegopodium. I bought one and kept in a pot and managed to kill it. So it can be done!

 

It obviously made quite an impression on her then.....

 

Wow folks. You scared me enough it's going back in the pot!
(wonder how the welsh lady kept it contained to just one patch in her garden?)

BTW would anyone know where to get some veronica chamaedrys? It's very common where I'm from and I miss it so badly! Has anyone seen it in the woods here in the UK?

 

If you are going to keep it (back in a pot :D) I would be inclined to remove and plain green shoots too as you may eventually loose the varigation..

A lot of variegated plants produce plain green shoots from time to time and if left they often grow more vigorously and take over the plant...:thumb:

 

Oh I'd be delighted! If it really is chamaedrys and not other species of veronica. The one with hairy paired leaves and deep violet-blue flowers. I'll read up on how to grow it here but in my home country it's not invasive and lives happily with other woodland/meadow grasses and flowers. If it's invasive in the English climate I'll pot it up.

 

Do you think I can stick this ooh-la-la elder in a pot with ivy and begonia? Or will it kill them? That pot is only covering the loo outlet, so i'm not too fussed about its inhabitants

 

You know what folks, I just looked up ground elder in Russian - according to wikipedia it's a great edible/medicinal plant that only grows in good fertile soil and certainly not an ecological threat! In the European part of Russia (that's where I'm from) it mostly grows in forest edges, meadows and along streams. Grows quite tall tho from what i remember, up to a man's height.

And the thing is, the climate over there is very similar to South East England where I am now, well, that is, May-Sept is about the same, and the rest is probably more like the very north of Scotland, cold, wet and with lots of snow in winter. It must be just that long snowy winter that keeps ground elder in check coz the one I have nearly died last winter when we had snow. Ivy is grown as a houseplant in Russia as it can't survive the winters outside.

If, according to some predictions, the Gulf Stream shuts down and Britain plunges into a mini-ice age, that'll be one problem sorted