The bad hair day plant

Yay!! I finally remembered to be fashionable this week!! I’m always so focused on being hooked on Fridays, I forget that Fridays are fashionable too!! Thanks to Julia at Hooked on Houses for hosting Hooked on Fridays, and to Fifi at Fifi Flowers Design Decor for hosting Fashionable Friday :-)

This week, I’m totally hooked on a fantastic and fashionable little plant called juncus effusus spiralis (JUNK-us eff-YOO-sus). It’s fun to say eff-YOU-sus… say it few times and you’ll see what I mean :-) Its more common name is the corkscrew rush. I found a picture of it on Flickr entitled The Bad Hair Day Plant, and that name stuck in my head :-)

You may be wondering why it was dubbed the bad hair day plant — it looks relatively tame in the picture over on the right, yes?? But don’t be fooled… this is one of the craziest & funkiest looking plants you’ll ever see!!

Some info…

• Family: Juncacae | Genus: Juncus | Species: Effusus | Cultivar: Spiralis
• Height: 12 –18 inches (30 – 45 cms)
• Hardiness: From Zone 4a (to –34.4C/-30F) to Zone 10b (to 1.7C/35F)
• Soil pH requirements: 5.6 to 6.0 (acidic) | 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic) | 6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)
• Sun exposure: Sun to partial shade
• Bloom colour: Inconspicuous, may grow brown flowers in early/mid summer
• Requires consistently moist soil (seems to like being in a pot that doesn’t have a drainage hole). Do not let dry out between waterings. Suitable for bogs and water gardens.

So if you always forget to water your plants, this little guy might not be for you — try a cactus instead ;-) But if you’re like me and tend to over-water your plants, it’s perfect!!

OK, want to see some pictures now?? Check this out!!

How funky is that!!?? It grows in water too…

Some artsy shots…

And a couple of close-up shots…

I bought six of them at the garden center at Loblaws. I’m going to put three in individual pots, and I put the other three into a container with some trailers and a fuchsia-on-a-stick (no idea what the technical term is!!)

I thought the curly grass would fill in the space around the fuchsia’s stem nicely. But that was before I realized that the fuchsia needs shade and the bad hair day plant likes a lot of sun and moisture. I’ll see how things go, and if the bad hair day plants start to look unhappy, I’ll transplant them into individual pots too. I think a grouping of pots looks great anyway…

So that’s what I’m hooked on this week. Now, head on back to Hooked on Houses and Fifi Flowers Design Decor to see what other fashionable things everyone else is hooked on this Friday :-)