Garden goings ons..and ons...and ons.....

I took the camera for a walk, yesterday, with the aim of concentrating on the wild flowers that are very much making their presence felt! It’s quite astounding just how many varieties there are and I didn’t snap them all! 

Green Alkanet, Bluebells, Ragged Robin, Honesty, Lamium, Primrose, Campion, White Deadnettle, Cowslip, Dandelion, Greater Celandine, Daisies, Periwinkle...to name a few.

 

Today, I had other things to do...pricking out Sunflowers, for starters. I decided to grow shorter varieties this year. I personally think that the really tall ones are a pain and a gimmick, hence my decision to sow the shorter varieties. We shall see! I’m going to plant these in the middle of my raised beds when they are a bit taller.

I also planted the Ranunculus and Anemone, from Farmer Gracy...these should give some lovely colour later on in the summer.

I have my favourite, little areas in our garden that bring a smile to my face every time that I pass by...

The Tulips have been glorious this year but here’s a strange thing. These multi headed, yellow, ‘Antoinette’ Tulips are growing out of one stem...apparently, it’s quite common with this variety!

 I’m pretty chuffed with my herb/ saxifrage/succulents/ trug , having given it a bit of TLC, recently...

Finally, I’ve planted four new plants. Three of these are shrubs, which I’ve put in some new, large terracotta pots. I wanted to add more fragrance to our patio area as well as attracting the bees and butterflies.

When in flower, they will look like this:

1. Daphne Cneorum...described as ‘intensely fragrant!’

2. Deutzia Raspberry Sundae....described as ‘sweetly scented’.

3. Philadelphus Snowbelle...described as having ‘a wonderful perfume’.

4. This is called Honeysuckle x heckrotti American Beauty...said to be ‘very fragrant’. This one will be planted in the smaller, back garden against a fence.

So as well as ‘Watch this space’...it might well be ‘Hold your nose!’ 

Beyond excited!

 

There’s no better place for me than to be in the garden. Ever since I owned my first garden, and even though it was a ‘pocket handkerchief’, the bug instantly bit me! That was back in the late 1970s, in Surrey, where there were mostly old fashioned nurseries at that point...and I loved to dive into one whenever there was a chance! Furthermore, RHS Wisley was not too far to travel and for me that was a dream visit as were a number of trips to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. I still have the programmes! ( Note to self...next blog post!)  I found all of that so inspiring and would always come away with grand plans..and a desire to one day own an acre of land! 

Years on, we don’t have quite an acre but we do have what I consider to be a really good size, country garden. And I still have the bug! Indeed, I do exactly what it tells me to do, on the book cover, above !

A few months ago, I was beyond excited to discover a lovely, independent, online business called, ‘The Cottage Gardener.’ 

I’ve ordered from this lovely lady a few times and the service is superb! Everything is beautifully packed and it just makes you want to keep going back for more! Which I do!

So, this time around, I bought some seeds, as above, as well as the seedball wildflower collection:

Suzanne also sells vintage items...and being such a lover of all things vintage, this, below, somehow ended up in my possession too! How that happened I will never know. 😂🤣😂 I wanted something to look good in my proper Sussex Trug. In fact, my first choice was a small fork but Suzanne rang me to say that it was really small and then she sent me photos of other items not yet on her website...I call that going above and beyond...as I said..superb service!  I chose the fork with the twisted prongs...it’s beautiful!

 

You can find The Cottage Gardener  Here .... (and take a cuppa with you whilst you browse! )

BUT that’s not all! 😁

Along with my fab items from Suzanne at The Cottage Gardener, my Anemones and Ranunculus arrived from Farmer Gracy...

Just like The Cottage Gardener, Farmer Gracy’s way of packing and presenting their items are a joy to behold! If you order from Farmer Gracy, it’s like receiving a beautifully wrapped birthday present! To squeal with delight is not unheard of! For starters, your order is printed on the back of this charming paper.

     I save it all...never throw it away!

And then, as well as this, you receive a couple of leaflets or postcards with your order...such as...

 

Indeed, I have had to make myself a gardening box in order to store 

all of these lovely garden themed bits and pieces. 

Pretty papers, cards, labels, seeds and even fabric pieces 

go into the box for further use, in some way.

And finally, I recently purchased a ‘non gardening item’ from a company called ‘Heathcote and Ivory’...and I was beyond excited about the paper that accompanied the items! It’s soooo pretty!

So, I have to say that Friday is turning out to be rather good..and with fish ‘n chips later on, what more could anyone want! 😁

St George’s Day 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

It was good to see this offering from Google as I turned on my iPad, first thing today. 

April 23rd and it’s St George’s Day

St George is The Patron Saint of England

Patron Saint = ‘The protecting or guiding Saint of a person or place’

And St George isn’t just The Patron Saint of England! He’s also The Patron Saint of

Bulgaria, Palestine, Ethiopia, Greece, Georgia and Lithuania. 

If you’d like to read more then look...

Here

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Auricula

     Hi there! I’m an Auricula! Don’t you think I’m rather lovely? I do! 😄

     Let me tell you all about myself!

     Firstly, I belong to the family, ‘ Primulaceae‘. 

I come in many varieties!

Firstly, there are the. ‘Show Auriculas’ :  Edged, Self , Striped or Fancy

Then there are ‘Alpine Auriculas’ : Light Centred, Gold Centred, Laced, Fancy.

And finally, ‘Other Auriculas:  Double, Border.

And believe it or not, I’ve been around for 500 years! Get that! 

That’s heaps longer than you! Just saying! And I’ll go on for a lot longer, yet!

I’m VERY cold tolerant; I DON’T like excessive heat or excessive moisture...

but I do thrive in moist well drained soil. 

However, I hate, loathe and detest acidic soil! 

Please remember that, if you decide to grow me in your garden.

Many people ‘show’ me...so that means I am grown in a greenhouse or under glass

 in order to protect me from the weather. Many Auriculas ( but not all) have this 

coating called ‘Farina’, on their leaves or  flowers; if this is touched it can 

spoil our appearance. And there’s nothing like your appearance  being marred, 

is there?  Oh no..perish the thought!

 

So that’s all about me! The Auricula. Have a happy day! 😁

Blossom...

I recently saw this on the RHS Libraries Twitter page and I thought

 it was really rather lovely.

Prunus Persica by Catherine Stewart Gladstone 

 

This is the time of year when blossom really does come into its own. Whilst having a quick wander around our garden, earlier, I noticed the apple blossom was looking splendid...

The Amelanchier Canadensis has just come into bloom. It’s so pretty and delicate.

We’re having very fine weather right now...I’ve had to get out the hose pipe in desperation! 

But boy, do we need some rain! Preferably, during the night!

🌷🌷🌷

 

I was worried about my tulips.

I was worried they wouldn’t bloom.

Monty said,‘DON’T plant too early!’

But one, October afternoon..

I took the plunge and off I went,

The day was fine and bright.

“I’ll have the bestest tulips 

And they’ll be quite a sight!’’

I looked at all the names;

I read them so carefully.

There was ‘ Virichic’ and ‘Rococo’,

‘Creme Upstar and ‘Dynasty’

‘Salmon Jimmy, Viridiflora,

Couleur Car- din- al,

Varieties of ‘Parrot’...

That would go down well!

Emperor (Exotic),

 Not forgetting Apricot!

Each one would look super, 

In its frost free flowerpot.

The final two were Antoinette,

(A rather tasty yellow!)

And last of all, ‘Hearts Delight’

(A pretty, pinkish fellow!)

I planted all of my tulips,

Maybe a little too soon!

We had the wettest winter!

“My tulips will never bloom!” 🥲

April came, t’was very cold

My pots, I scrutinised

In shock, I screamed,’ My Tulips!’

I surely was surprised!

Each and every bulb,

Surviving the winter’s cold,

Was showing off its beauty

With colours OH SO BOLD! 👍

When it comes to autumn ‘21

I’ll know just what to do!

I’ll ignore the advice of experts 

And listen to ‘You know who’! 

😂🤣😂

( Sal Hall 19/04/2021)

🌷🌷🌷

‘Going around the houses’ 😆

I was busy as a busy thing, going in and out of my greenhouse, yesterday, when something caught my eye. It was a very small, very vivid, bright, blue flower. I looked and then looked again but I couldn’t think for the life of me what it was. It seemed to be a number of plants all rolled into one: Forget me not, Brunnera, Borage, Comfrey, Anchusa, to name a few. I knew that it wasn’t any of these...so what was it?

I was stumped. I didn’t plant it in that place, either! So it’s must have seeded there.

So, this called for some proper, serious, investigative, research skills! 

Now, in times gone by, this would’ve meant delving into the Encyclopaedia Britannica. When I was young, my dad invested in a set ( complete with a massive atlas of world maps...as well as the specially designed bookcase, with the slot in the back for the atlas!) and my mum also bought the set of Children’s Britannica. So we were fortunate to be well resourced and we were very much a ‘book family’. And I absolutely loved that method of research...(which is sadly lacking nowadays, as all one has to do is click a button or tap a key.)

Being avid readers we also belonged to the local library. Many a time, I would also borrow the Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue and I would often struggle home with this heavy monstrosity in the hope that I would discover, in my collection, a rare and valuable stamp! Not that good old Stanley Gibbons would be able to help me now with this plant! What Stanley knew about British wild flowers could probably be written on the back of a ...err...postage stamp! 😂 😂😂 (Actually, I think he knew more about wives...he appears to have had a string of them!  😆) 

Anyway, talking of books ...my grandma’s collection was always of great appeal. She, too, was an avid reader and she adored books. My mum always said that she treasured books so much as she could barely afford to buy a book when she was young. However, when she did manage to save a few pennies, she would go to Gloucester market and browse there, choosing very carefully. For me, as a young child, visits to her house were a treat as far as books were concerned; I still have one or two very old books that belonged to her. One of them in particular was this one:

Written by Cecily Mary Barker, this was one of my favourite books. My tatty copy is falling to pieces because of the number of times that I read it and the number of times it was read before me; it’s been well read and so obviously well loved.

The other reason I loved my visits to see my Grandma, was because she knew the names of every wild flower and she would take me around the lanes, near to where she lived, in a place called Kingskerswell, (between Newton Abbot and Torquay) and she would teach me the names of the wild flowers in the hedgerows, the verges, and beyond these, the meadows. I was privileged to have had that kind of childhood and I remember those days so well. As I grew older, I never went anywhere without an iSpy book tucked into my pocket..usually of a nature theme..wild flowers, trees, butterflies, fungi etc etc etc. Being surrounded by beautiful woodland as well as richly inhabited heathland, allowed nature to always be ‘in your face’, making her presence felt at all times. 

I know...I’m going all around the houses to get to the point of this blog post: My newly discovered plant!  Be patient! Especially you in the cheap seats! Stop heckling! 😂 😂😂 

To continue...Groundsel it was most definitely NOT! And my Grandma is no longer around to help me. So I had either to rely on my trusty, ‘Concise British Flora in Colour’ by Keble Martin (BTW, he also has a connection with South Devon...but I’ll leave that for another time otherwise you’ll be yawning and saying, ‘Get a flamin’ move on Sal, we don’t have all day’).....or take the lazy ‘sit and look online’ option.

In this instance, I took the lazy option to ‘Google’ ...and hey presto! Woo hoo...! Success!

Many paragraphs later, I can tell you I have discovered that this plant is:

Green Alkanet, Pentaglottis sempervirens

You might have already known this! But just to remind you... as you’ve no doubt forgotten what the plant looked like...as it seems like a week ago when you started to read this post...😆..here it is again...

Quite common in The British Isles, the ‘sempervirens’ means ‘always alive’ or ‘evergreen’; ‘Alkanet’ comes from an Arabic word for Henna; Pentaglottis is from Greek, meaning ‘five tongues’ ( which I believe refers to the five flower petals). 

And guess what? This plant belongs to the family Boraginaceae...as does the Forget-me-not, Borage, Anchusa, Comfrey and Brunnera! So, I was almost there in my assessment!

This plant likes to grow in most conditions but it is a serious weed in some places as it’s very hard to get rid of ....because it has a very deep tap root. AND...its coarse hairs can cause a rash. Just saying!  Use gloves! Take care! 🧤 

Nevertheless, I’m leaving my specimen exactly where it is because it’s in a confined space and it has WILDLIFE VALUE. Apparently, it is one of the food plants of the Scarlet Tiger Moth; its leaves are used by leaf mining flies as well as a micro moth and the flowers attract Orange Tip Butterflies, Hoverflies and various species of Solitary bees. It is a valuable part of nature.

So there you have it...I hope that you enjoyed this post and ‘Well done’ if you reached the end!

I’m now off to have a cuppa..and contemplate what it might be like to have 5 tongues! 🤣😂🤣 

Beautiful Book time!

‘Book time’...or I should say ‘Must have’ book time....and all connected, in some way, with gardening.

First up is this one...

’ A Woman’s Garden’ by Tanya Anderson

I ordered this months ago! And it finally arrived on Friday.

Living on the Isle of Man ( she was born in the U.S.A), Tanya grows lovely and beautiful plants and then shows you how you can use these in your life! I’ve been reading her website as well as her blog for some time...well worth a visit too. You can find these...

Here

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Next up is ..

Kate Bradbury’s ‘How to create a Wildlife Pond’

Now, we’ve already created a wildlife pond in our garden but that’s not to say that we don’t need more books! I follow Kate on Twitter and when I saw that she was writing this book, I knew that it would be a useful addition to my gardening bookshelf ( or is that bookshelves? :-) It’s a fabulous book, full of useful facts and info... and Kate’s passion and enthusiasm is infectious!

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Thirdly...I could not resist this one! Oh no!

‘The Flower Yard’ by Arthur Parkinson

Arthur Parkinson...so who is  he? Here are a couple of snippets from his biography..

‘Arthur Parkinson grew up in Nottinghamshire taking school summer holidays in the neighbouring Peak District. This resulted in him forming an endearing passion for chickens and of the countryside. He discovered a book by Sarah Raven called ‘The Bold and Brilliant Garden’ which began his interest in gardening and lead him to study it when he left school going onto train at Kew Gardens for a year. Arthur then worked for Sarah Raven at her farm in East Sussex for a summer before going onto work for Emma Bridgewater at her factory in Stoke -on-Trent. Here he took on a walled garden behind the factories gift shop turning it into a lush, sultry toned potager and cut flower styled archipelago complete with his flock of adored, rare breed hens .....

.....Arthur takes his own photographs and over 200 photos are in his first book ‘The Pottery Gardener’ While working at the Emma Bridgewater Factory full time he still works for Sarah Raven on a free lance basis and visits Chatsworth Farmyard as often as time allows he also gardens at his mothers cottage Mill Yard which will be the focus of his next book.’

Did you see that? ‘ his next book’....( salivates!) . 

The photography in ‘The Flower Yard’ is superb, btw!

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Finally,  my dear ‘other half’ bought this for me, last week. 

‘The Complete Gardener’ by Monty Don

It’s a cracker of a book with so much packed into it. I love Monty Don and watch avidly when he presents Gardeners’ World, usually with my notebook at the ready. It’s my ‘treat of the week’. 

If you could only afford one book, this would be the one. It’s been updated too with photos of Monty’s garden at Longmeadow, interspersed with all the gardening ‘know how’ that you need. 

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