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Our Lady's Milk Thistle gets a mention out of a sense of completeness and as a way of basking briefly in nostalgia. When I moved into this garden some levels had to be changed.
I wanted a little flat space and a contractor with a digger and an eye for volume did the job for me. I was left with some expanses of bare, stony soil and I had at the time
a Silybum in a pot. These were the days before the trees were planted, all was sunshine and wind. The Silbum loved it and for a few years I had a wandering flock of seedlings brightening up
the bare earthworks. Things develop, they died out and were gone before I took photographs of them (in the days of the wind-up camera and plastic film). I was offered this seedling and took it, knowing it was doomed. For a few days I basked in the plainness of its patterned memory and then a rabbit ate it and it was gone. This time I got a picture.These were the glory days. There is no end of verbiage out there filled with loveless descriptions of the plant. Go look therm up and discover a loveless world for yourself. All I can find that I liked came from Chiltern Seeds who have a feeling (ouch) for the plant: "No! Don't dismiss this plant as just another thistle - it is a striking and most attractive foliage plant with flat rosettes of large, prickly leaves, most strikingly lined and marbled with broad white veins - indeed variegation probably not surpassed for beauty in any other plant - and bearing large heads of sweet-scented, rose-purple flowers. Not only that, but you can eat it: the roots boiled, the flower-heads like Artichokes, and the leaves in salads - which just leaves the prickles! |
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