Poached Egg Plant

Larumbelle

One of my neighbours has given me some poached egg plant and told me to 'bung it everywhere'. She says it stops weeds and encourages wildlife and then when you dig it in it feeds the other plants.
All it says on the back is that it attracts butterflies. Is she having me on?

serena

Limnanthes douglasii - Poached egg flower. It has loose rosettes of light green leaves, and flowers which are white with a yellow centre. There are also varieties with plain yellow or white flowers, and one of the seed companies sells a mixture known as Scrambled Eggs:rolleyes:

It self sows very enthusiastically, and usually in the autumn, so that it will flower early summer. It will probably stop weeds as it simply doesn't leave a lot of space for them. It is however easy to pull out where you don't want it. It is popular with insects especially bees and hoverflies. It is a good source for early nectar. Hoverfly larvae will eat greenfly. Slugs and snails don't touch it. I really like it, and grow it on the allotment.

Larumbelle

Cool! I thought they looked pretty, but if they'll do a bit of good so much the better! It just sounded like one of those weird initiation windups to me, to be honest, so I thought I'd better check!

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

I've got a variety of this that's white with a purple edging,very pretty.

alanobrien

Also supposed to deter aphids, i have some along with marigolds in my greenhouse "protecting" my pepper and chillies