How is your summer going so far? Have you traveled to any cool places or gorgeous gardens?
My summer is blowing right by at the speed of sound. The month of June came and went in what seemed like a week. Between projects at work and home, driving the kids to camp, and traveling, I honestly cannot believe how quickly everything came and went.
Suddenly it is July, I just celebrated my 43rd birthday, and we are finishing up our last big garden project at work. Today in Boothbay the temperature even got up into the 80’s. The rest of the US might not consider that a big feat, but after enduring almost two and a half months of brutally cold winter, 80 degrees seems like a sauna when the humidity is high and the winds are still. I hope to start catching up on the things that have been on the back burner, both at work and at home. Every day, I have even been able to get out and walk around the gardens. This warm weather and long hours of daylight are allowing the plants to grow like weeds (the weeds are doing their fair share as well).
The one plant that is bursting out of the gate like American Pharoah in a Triple Crown race is milk thistle or Silybum marianum. Our milk thistles went into the ground as 6-8″ plants in early June. The spiny, white-lined foliage is now over a foot across and almost a foot in height. By the end of the summer, these plants are going to be monsters. It is interesting to see how many guests have become used to safe landscapes. They see the spiny leaves and act surprised when they touch the leaves and they are actually sharp! In doing more research on milk thistle, it is cool to see how useful it is in treating ailments of the liver. A friend of ours commented to me that her husband takes milk thistle tablets each day to help treat his liver ailments. At the gardens, we are going to have to start moving plants growing around the milk thistle because we did not realize that it would get so large.
Have you grown Silybum before? Are there any other things that I need to know about growing this strangely beautiful plant?
–Rodney
Reason to Design 
We grew this plant several summers ago when I was planting and maintaining the containers at the Scott Arboretum. We overwintered the pot in our polyhouse and the next spring we had several rosettes (we were not certain it would be hardy out of doors in a container). It’s a monster in a container too and the large leaves can crowd out smaller plants quickly.
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