Borage: Star-Shaped Blue Flowers
This was going to be a post about rudbeckia or black-eyed susan. However, a deer ate my beautiful yellow flower that miraculously blossomed in front of my house. So I looked for inspiration elsewhere.
Borage is growing in my plant cage. I had the cage built because the deer ate most of my edible plants. This year I am concentrating on growing cucumbers. A good companion to cucumber plants is borage. I originally put three borage seedlings that I bought at the Highland Park Farmers Market in my backyard. However, despite my deer fence in the backyard, something nibbled at the borage. So off it went into the cage.
Borage is grown as an annual in New Jersey. It is native to the Mediterranean. Some special notes about borage: you can eat the flowers and the leaves. I have seen the flowers described as cornflower blue or as smoky blue. To me the blue is slightly on the purple side.
I sketched several pages about borage in my sketchbook.
Borage is a quick growing annual with hairy leaves and cornflower-blue star-shaped flowers.
Days to Germination: 5 days at 70° F
Source: The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel
shiju sugunan says
What a lovely post on borage, Leora! Your illustrations are beautiful, and it's so interesting to hear about your gardening journey with it, especially after the deer incident!
leoraw says
Shiju, thank you for visiting and leaving a lovely comment. We have had way too many deer incidents in the past twenty years! I remember planting tomatoes without worrying about them getting eaten by the deer.
Michelle says
I love borage and there is some planted in the garden. Yes deer and rabbits have eaten some of my plants....Love your paintings....Michelle
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