This might not be terribly interesting, but it cropped up in my mind-web as a blog idea and I want to run with it.

I have plants that I never planted. Some are still a mystery, like this one:

It’s a tree of some sort… Probably a big old weed tree like my grey willow; now well over 12 feet tall and beloved by the little birds. This one is growing in my planter of irises, and I’ve tried to kill it two years in a row by accident. It keeps coming back – maybe an ash tree?

I gained a fern last year out of nowhere, too.

This is either a ‘hay-scented fern’ or a ‘lady fern’. Tending toward the former, as it says primarily grows in western Ireland and likes west-facing land (ticks one box, as it faces south). I don’t mind one bit that it landed here.

I dug this up and planted it, a native flowering grass. I believe it is thrift, Armeria maritima.

And of course the yellow iris we dug up! I don’t know anyone else who has these in their garden on purpose. Iris pseudacorus

My newest arrival was a mystery for the whole six minutes it was in Facebook. I had a guess, and it was confirmed: native Irish common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii. Did you know that Ireland has at least 14 native orchids?

It’s getting ready to bloom, too:

I love what I grew intentionally, but these are some lovely native species that I can’t kick out of the garden.