Blooming Disappointment

In my last post I featured a flowering plant that I'm really pleased with this summer, Madia elegans (it's still blooming without signs of stopping), and now I'll mention a plant that seems to have given blooming a miss this year. Eriophyllum lanatum. Great plant, and I see it all over Mt. Diablo. I don't know why it's not into blooming in the yard this year...maybe it gets a bit too much shade, though I think it gets a good five or six hours of sun, so....

I bought just one in March 2009 and was told by the nurseryman to baby it a little over its first year, and then it would spread far and wide but stay low. Check, check and check, and last year, though it was still small, it was covered in lovely yellow daisy flowers. I decided to make cuttings (it's one of the easiest plants to root that I've every tried) so now I have several of them, but not one bloomed.  Pity, because I was counting on ol' E. lanatum to provide some good-sized areas of bright summer color. It still makes a serviceable ground cover, and indeed, even a neighbor who isn't really into natives inquired about it, saying he liked the texture. So oh well. Maybe it'll bloom next year. 


Here it is in the foreground, last summer--it looks similar now but at least twice the size:



And  here's one of the cuttings:



And here are last year's flowers.  Sigh.