The hail is flamenco-ing on the velux and I am remembering happy days.
This photo was taken at the very end of March 2016 at Holbrook Garden. I was visiting this wild and wonderful garden with the grand dame of Little Ash, Helen. A meadow of Fritillaria meleagris, the snake’s head fritillary, was particularly spectacular, with its nodding heads of mottled purple interspersed on occasion with an albino specimen. Great beauty indeed.
It didn’t take me long to realise that when you visit Nancy Nightingale you have to be prepared for all eventualities. Even a shark. Luckily this one was only 20cm long and quite friendly.
I have fallen a little behind with my photograph sorting/deleting/labelling/archiving/tedium. Excuses, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention. Here is another picture, a slightly nibbled abutilon, just to show that I am making a pathetic effort. It was taken this time-ish last year on a visit to Knightshayes with the lovely Torrington Tina, Hero and Moo. As I remember it was a wonderful day.
The Elixir of Life, am I right in saying that it has actually been invented? If anyone can get their hands on any please give me a nod. Perhaps Amazon or BJ’s? It might be needed if I am ever to finish this job. Are you still counting John?
999,997
We don’t often have cut flowers in the house. It is not that I have anything against them, and I invariably admire them in others’ homes, it just seldom happens. Embarrassingly I have friends who are growers and naturally always champion British flowers. As we have a very small garden any blooms are best left in situ and for some mysterious reason I am seldom bought them. At this time of year I relent. The moment I see the first daffodils of the year I am lost. The sight alone of them bundled up, still tight in bud, brings a thrill. To me they represent a corner turned. Once safely transported home, hopefully still with all their heads intact, they are ensconced in my favourite vase. Over the next few days they gradually unfurl their petals releasing their welcome perfume, reminding us of what joys are to come.
All I can tell you about this photo is that I took it in January last year when we were holidaying in Cornwall. It is strange to write “holidaying in Cornwall”. Of course it is exactly what we were doing, but as someone who spent my formative years in West Penwith (and yes those years did a great deal of forming) then I would like to think there are special tendrils pulling me west. Is it natural to crave to return to the source of the stream? I don’t know. All I do know is that I feel more of connection with Cornwall than to anywhere else in the world. Sometimes I envy those with a strong heritage, born and bred, but in reality I imagine that there are more of us gypsies out there, those who never quite belong anywhere. Citizens of the world perhaps. Surely that can’t be a bad thing. It is just that sometimes I would like to be able to sing the songs.
Exquisitely diddy, Himalayan alpine, Foamlea Garden, enough said.
999,998 to go.
With the good must come the bad, the cloud before the silver lining arrives, the doughnut that missed the jam nozzle. A month off, but a million photos to catalogue. Here is a photo taken this time last year. It is a blossoming Parrotia persica or Persian Ironwood, taken at RHS Rosemoor. The flowers have no petals and are tiny, but appearing in profusion, before any foliage masks their beauty and being of the deepest darkest red they are a sight to behold.
One down, 999,999 to go.
Winter is traditionally horticultural ordering season; seed, plants, bulbs. Take your pick. Catalogues have arrived with their evil photos and delicious descriptions, emails regularly pop into your inbox tempting you to (with one click) enter their wicked world. Combined with opportunity aplenty to peruse at pleasure, this adds up to a very slippery slope. I am talking black ice and cold custard and Vaseline. Yes, that slippery.
I am resisting ordering more seed as I am expecting my Hardy Plant Society delivery soon (40 packets) and my seed tin is already threatening explosion. A couple of months ago I panicked at a 50p a packet sale and bought too many to admit to, including at least 5 packets of California poppies.
As for for plants, until I learn to look after them properly I am definitely not buying any more for myself. My fingers may have been crossed as I typed that. Metaphorically of course. Otherwise it would have been very tricky. And of course that excludes the species dahlias that will be arriving in the spring. And any other unavoidable accidental purchases or gifts.
However, the recent kind donation of a variety of terracotta pots has given me a valid excuse to buy some bulbs to fill them. To be more accurate, bulbs and corms. I’m ever keen to try things I haven’t grown before so for that reason I have chosen Bessera elegans, Chasmanthe floribunda, Nerine undulata, Leucocoryne ‘Andes’ and Zephranthes rosea. They won’t arrive for a few months, and by that time I am bound to have forgotten which beauties I picked. Even now I can anticipate the thrill of opening the box of delights.
The stragglers, like this dewed arctotis, are most admired on these dull days, for both their perseverance and optimism.
Reader, I planted him.
Happy New Six on Saturday to you all. What is Six on Saturday you ask? Can I believe my ears? Where have you been for the last century, Mars? I suggest you take your rocket ship over to Mr P’s planet, our commandant’s home, and it will all become clear. Let us proceed.
Earlier in the week we were visited by the feisty storm Eleanor*. A sleepless night left us feeling a little battered the next day. The windows are streaked with brine, the recycling is in Somerset and plants are looking slightly stunned. This morning I smiled when I noticed a desiccated hydrangea bloom dangling from the telephone wire outside our bedroom window. Today it has been sliding one way, then the other, like a floral tightrope walker.
A couple of weeks ago I was kindly given a coreopsis by one of my esteemed clients. It was an unwanted gift. Not for me, you must understand, for them. It was very welcome for me. During the recent skirmishes it was somehow robbed of its pot, which has not been found, and left embarrassingly naked from the waist down. My dysfunctional gardener solution was to bung it in this oversized pot until I get around to sorting it. Is that sirens I can hear?
Apparently there is an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. There is good reason. It is warm and the sun shines. There is just one coffee plant in my back garden and it is looking a little the worse for wear. It has been living in the house (quite rightly) but was sent outside to sit on the naughty step as it had an aphid infestation. Then we (yes “we” ) forgot to bring it back in again when it got on the nippy side and a tad breezy. Silver lining – there is no sign of white fly.
That has got the weather stuff out of my system. Let us move onto something else. Oh yes, some agapanthus seed heads. I love seed, a little too much perhaps. But so does our leader The Propagator, and a mention will keep him happy.
My other half loves spider plants. I don’t. As we live in a democracy (at the moment) I concede to this adoration. It could be much worse. So he keeps on propagating them, rather they keep propagating themselves and he pots them on. Or divides them. Many moons ago he read how they clean the air or some such nonsense (unfortunately for me, possibly true nonsense). There is now at least one in every room of the house. I took one off his hands and planted it outside. It will die, I hoped. It hasn’t. It just looks even uglier. Surrounded by weed and manky apples precisely sums up my feelings. Yuk.
What a gloomy selection of photos, not to mention the doomy text. That is not the way to start the new year. I will finish with a picture to raise the spirits a little; crocus and Jetfire daffodils emerging through the violas. Not long ’til spring, but until then, let us enjoy what we have.
Thanks Lord Propagator for emotionally blackmailing me yet again into submitting my SoS, and of course for hosting the meme (yes I said meme again). Fingers crossed for next week!
* I have generally found that whenever I moan or gripe about my life, indulge myself in self pity, things are inadvertently brought to my attention to put me to shame. And quite rightly so. If I am feeling ill, I read about someone far poorlier than I am hopping up Kilimanjaro with a smile on their face. If I am feeling hard done by, I hear of some underprivileged soul doing kindnesses to those more fortunate than themselves. And if the weather is getting me down, I am shocked by TV clips of blizzards and droughts and floods and general devastation the experience of which is far from mine. Therefore please bear in mind that I am fully aware of the pathetic nature of any weather system that might befall us here in the UK and our embarrassing inability to cope with it. It was a pretty windy though.
Off The Edge Gardening