❞𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒚 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕, 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒚, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎.❞
~ Vincent Van Gogh
This petunia has quickly become one of my favourite flowers. I didn't know they even existed until recently. They have a few different names - Galaxy, Night Sky and Starlight Petunia depending on the colouration. Before I found this out, I just called them "the bleached flowers".
I admired them from afar for many months before one was gifted to me out of the blue night sky (lol). Was it that obvious how much I liked them? Probably.
I always thought that Petunias were rather fragile and I was never sure if I'd want to take the chance on growing them and feeling horribly bad if they died. After I was given this one I started seeing them everywhere. At office blocks, in gardens dotted around trees, even in little planters at shopping centres. They can't be that finicky if they are able to survive at malls.
This plant I've now had since May and to my surprise, it has weathered many horrible storms, heavy rainfall, gale force wind and while it may look a little tatty in places, it's still putting out new flowers and blooming every day.
Recently I found a pink variety of this petunia at the local plant nursery and imagined interspersing a whole range of different colours in a section of the garden, that really would look like a galaxy. They also come in speckled deep maroon and almost black.
I found this little moth sheltering in one of the flowers and had to take a photo, look at it's cute little nose! It stayed there overnight and by the next afternoon it was gone.
It's special seeing this kind of interaction in a garden even though all my flowers are just in pots. Every day I see bees buzzing around looking for nectar and I start wondering things like do these flowers maybe look different under ultraviolet (the spectrum that bees see)? They sure do put on a show in normal light.
My housemate is probably going to kill me with all the plants I keep bringing home, but what colour do you think I should add to the garden next?
𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒍𝒚 𝑨𝑰 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆. 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏.