“Asiatic Dayflower” – Summer 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA
“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…
Commelina communis… AKA “Asiatic Dayflower” due to its blooms lasting only one day each… It is an annual that is extremely sensitive to cold… Even a slight frost will kill it…
I know what you are thinking… This plant is in fact a weed and it is borderline invasive… But pulling it is oh so satisfying… Asiatic Dayflower is a lightning-fast grower… It initially resembles a lily in shape and form… As the plant matures it starts to stretch… When in full vegetative growth the stem stretches up to a foot between leaves… Where the intervals occur the plant likes to branch… These branches tend to grow through each other leading to a massive tangle…
I have found that pulling Dayflower is more of an art form than an attack… I gently grasp a few branched and slowly pull… This plant has very shallow roots so it will slowly free itself… I can regularly pull the entire plant in one try… It is not uncommon to fill an entire lawn and leaf bag with one plant…
Also interesting is the fact that if left in the sun this plant will quickly dehydrate… A few hot days will shrink even a large pile down to practically nothing… What would take me 10 garbage bags to clean up can be done in less than one if you are willing to be patient and let nature do some of the work… When composting massive quantities of garden waste it is always helpful to spread it out on the ground and let it dry in the sun for a few days… Drying also shrinks the amount of plant material to be added to the pile…
The Wikipedia article for this plant is great and I can’t compete with it… I highly recommend reading it…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_dayflower
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
This website and all of the information presented within is provided free by the author… Me… It is my sole opinion and is not representative of anyone other than myself… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is… 1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
chriscondello 