A plant riddle for you

This week Jeff, Bert and I are brainstorming new and exciting ways that The Garden Professors can invade…I mean integrate into…the gardening world. (We’re channeling Holly, who had a conflict with another even this week.)  We’ll leave discussion of the particulars for another day.  But that’s my segue into my text-short but picture-perfect invasive plant story.

Earlier this spring I was in Palm Desert and spotted a large clumb of purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) in a landscape:

So here is the riddle: Why did the fountain grass cross the road?

To get to the other side.

Published by

Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

6 thoughts on “A plant riddle for you”

  1. I love this photo. Something about the shape of the grass clumps makes them seem to be facing each other across the street. “Bob! What are you doing? Get back over here! Watch for cars!”

  2. Ursula, I had the same reaction when I took this last picture! And Jan, I’m sure you mean purpler, right? Ray, you should see some of the desert washes in the Coachella Valley. They are just filthy with purple fountain grass…

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