How to say sorry to a forget-me-not

And not your standard run-of-the-mill forget-me-not either: a water forget-me-not. Myosotis palustris syn. Myosotis scorpioides.

It looked really great back in March, didn't it? I don't normally buy flowering perennials in March - and I really don't recommend it either - but the horticultural students at Algonquin College were having their annual flower show and there was no way I could walk past this plant without buying it. It's not easy to find and I like it so much better than the standard Myosotis sylvestris.

"Why?" you ask. "What's so special about it?"

I always love it when you set me up for what I want to say like that.

Because this is a perennial, more or less evergreen forget-me-not, which will even rebloom a bit throughout the season. As the name might lead you to believe, it does prefer to stay damp, but it doesn't require boggy conditions. Dappled light in moist soil will keep it quite happy. It is more or less on the edge of its range here, so it's wise to make sure it's mulched during the winter if the snow cover isn't reliable. That's how I lost my last clump - a good thaw followed by a prolonged very cold snap did it in.

These greenhouse-grown perennials (I bought a white-flowered one too) had to be hardened off which was difficult to do when it was still basically winter. I'd almost succeeded very nicely too, and was leaving them outside even overnight as the weather warmed when we got a good cold night. I forgot to bring them in. Absent-mindedness is one of my worst garden pests, let me assure you. Unfortunately, they don't sell sprays for it.

The plants survived, but they were weakened and a bunch of opportunistic aphids moved in and clobbered them even further. I got rid of the aphids once I noticed them and then put the plants in the ground. My bleeding heart more than doubled in size from last year and overran the poor things. Are you beginning to see why an apology or five was in order?

Well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make it up to them. The survivors anyway. I'm digging up my meadow anemones with some real regret, but I just don't have a good place for them. They're too tall where I've got them in front of the Jack Frost brunnera, so I'll put the forget-me-nots in their place. It should make for a lovely cloud of blue come spring, with both the FMG's and Jack Frost displaying their matching blooms at once.

Previous post on the topic of Jack Frost brunnera, Meadow anemones

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