Random acts of flowery kindness

A lovely day spreading flowery joy around the neighbourhood today.

A slow turnover at the bank holiday market yesterday had left me with a beautiful bootful, along with the grim prospect of composting them as I am going away again tomorrow.  Too horrible to contemplate such an early wormfood fate for my pretties.

Came up with the idea of asking a local restaurant if they would be interested in purchasing my market surpluses at a bargain price and carrying my card  (thus benefitting both parties), but sadly, they currently dress their smart interior with only artificial flowers (boooooooo!), and none even of those in sight today, so obviously not a priority.  A shame, as I think my bunches would be a brilliant contrast to the restaurant's sleek lines and really cheer the tables with their charcoal grey settings.   So, leaving the maitre D a couple of gratis bunches for the bar so he can see how marvellous they look and sow the seeds of a flowery idea, I departed, with one dahlia arrangement still in my hand.

Saw a lady who works at my bank about to cross the road, so gave her a rather pleasant surprise by interrupting her shopping with an impromptu bunch. Another passerby said "Oh, I was just admiring those.." at which I offered her a further posy from the car, thus earning myself promises of a prayer and a church candle for my largesse.

A nearby, flower-nut friend got back from holiday this weekend, and I knew for certain that she would appreciate the remainder. Roses, sweetpeas, dahlias and echinacea got a very excited reception from the friend and her daughters who rapidly pressed them into service to garnish their tea table laden with the results of their baking spree - sparkly iced cakes, biscuits and nutella lumps coated with melted chocolate.  I can vouch for the tastiness of the latter.

My this week's catsitter and her daughter called in to check feeding arrangements and claim keys, and received a dahlia bunch and two bedside posies for their pains. Their delighted grins and exclamations over sweet pea and mint scents, made me glad I had found such good homes for my ephemeral beauties.

The pleasure my bunches have brought all the diverse recipients today has more than made up for a lack of sales. Powerful things, flowers!

Weeds glorious weeds

Alys Fowler loves weeds, according to Radio 4 yesterday.  She was singing their praises for their wildlife attracting benefits and for their beauty.  The humble dandelion was top of her list for gorgeous looks, but I'm afraid I can't share her love of that one.  The shiny, almost metallic yellow petals of creeping buttercup, settled in a cloud of blue forget me nots, have been known to lift my spirits and escape the weeding hand from time to time. But Alys's  broadcast set me to thinking which other weeds I gladly harbour in my garden.

Frothy spurge hides the naked legs of my Zepherine Drouhin rose.

Hens and chickens goes so well with Carex bronze curls.

Self sown prettiness in the form of linum (I think)

Bees and butterflies love the buddleia which the birds brought me.

I never planted this lemon balm, but it's very welcome.

A bit hazardous to use the compost bin right now, but once the berries have ripened I will tackle this tasty weed.

Does cerinthe count as a weed if I didn't plant it in the gravel?

I'm not showing you my ground elder and bindweed however, because they are evil devils and do not deserve any publicity. Even though the ground elder flowers do make nice fillers in bunches...

Holiday harvests

Have just returned from a week split between Latvia and Estonia - both fantastic.  Also learned lots about mushrooming, herb tea concocting and general foraging from Ilona, our supremely hospitable and generous host.  Am quite obsessed with finding good mushrooming sites now that I'm home.  Forest floors beware!

I also loved Ilona's outdoor walk-in larder - a bricklined earth mound, resplendent with shelves, hanging rails and ancient hooks from which hams once hung.  Made me think that I should press my cellar into service as a jam and preserves store, not that jams and preserves hang around for very long in this house...

Ilona's garden was also steeped in family history, with plants dating back to her grandmother's pre-Soviet garden, and a gnarly, sprawly apple tree grafted with several different varieties by her great-grandfather which still bears fruit today.  Talking plants with her was fascinating, and we found that we have quite a lot of flowers, and a shared taste in unfussy gardening in common.  However, some things that I love, like verbena bonariensis, while fine in an Estonian summer (and seen in swathes planted in Latvia's capital, Riga) would not take kindly to -30 degrees in winter, so have to be viewed as annuals only. Her golden rod, astilbes, phlox, peonies, echinacea (which I've always found a bit tricky) and sedums are obviously tough plants as they have persisted over generations through such incredibly harsh winters.  They deserve more than an RHS award of garden merit for showing such staying power!

Her generous garden is so different to my own - wrapping all around her gorgeous long, low wooden house, overlooking a beautiful, forest fringed lake.  In my own garden, my planting is often to screen neighbouring houses and to create a feeling of privacy, whilst in hers, tall bulky planting would be the last thing needed as it would block out that amazing view.  Oooh, such a lovely challenge though!

Returning home to Birmingham, it was straight to work with the cutting scissors in order to stop my productive flowers setting seed and giving up the ghost.  Swathes of sweet peas were therefore stuffed into any receptacle of a suitable height, and the forests of dahlias were felled and put into vases.

Cut cut cut!

At the allotment, badgers seem to have enjoyed all the broad beans which I didn't get time to pick before going away, stripping all the previously laden plants clean of pods.  They had left me runner beans and french beans though and do not seem to have any appetite for courgettes or chard, so I didn't leave the plot empty handed.  The first, early apples are crisp, sweet and ready to pick, so I'd better dust off the juicer, the tarte tatin recipe and get ready to extend all my waistbands in readiness for apple cake season.  The rhubarb also seems to be getting its second wind - wonder what it tastes like juiced with apples? Too sour?  Will have to try it to see.

'Charlotte' potatoes just half and hour old provided a treat for tea and I'm impressed with their yields this year.  'Rooster' doesn't seem to have produced many tubers though, so don't think I'll buy that one again next year. A pity as it is a really tasty variety - and that's saying something as I am not generally a potato fan.

A bountiful day, all in all.  The only thing missing is mushrooms... and a lake view....

Going to seed

The July flop is happening and the earlier flowers are going to seed.  Where the slow starting annuals have got going, they are bursting buds and showing some welcome colour.  I have fallen back in love with Nigella (the love-in-a-mist variety, not the TV chef), having grown it from fresh seed this year and getting the gorgeous pastel blue shade back.  My self-perpetuating, self-seeded stuff always seems to come up faded grey/white, so its nice to see the blue ones again.

Their delicate sculptural seedheads are just as pretty as the flower itself and they are fabulous for cutting for bunches.  Want MORE. Greedy.

Elsewhere, seedheads are featuring largely in the borders and on the worktop. The fat black cerinthe seeds are still being gathered in quantity and the fine umbellifers of ammi are still proving useful for cutting - shape, but no pollen now!  My main border has still got plenty of height, but not enough colour.  The knautia is doing its annual seed-chucking exercise in a bid for complete domination next year but it is going to get a thinning, so doubtless friends will be glad to receive its potted up offspring into their gardens.

                           

                   

I've got lots of shape, but not enough colour and am desperate for my cosmos 'purity' to get going to add a bit of flowery interest.

In the righthand border where I hoiked out the rambling rose, the dahlias are doing their stuff and are producing lots of flowers at the moment, loving these alternately hot and wet conditions.  Yesterday my  in-car thermometer read 34.5 degrees, but today is warm, cloudy and damp. Good growing weather - time to start taking cuttings of my herbs and lavender methinks and make the most of this propagating climate.

A fantasy in bricks and mortar

Just been to book the venue for my husband's big birthday bash next year and, having never been to the place before, had a quick wander round the pleasant gardens which surround it.  All very nice.  My eye was drawn to a clock tower at the end of the garden but reaching it, found that it was a part of a small, locked building embedded in an 18 foot brick wall which went on... and on... and on.... round various small crumbly brick outbuildings and round a huge, abandoned expanse of walled garden.

Ooooooooooooooooh.


Managed to peer though a sliverish gap in the boarding and what I saw made my heart go bang. Takes me back to my red and gold bound copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'Secret Garden' which I pored over in my childhood. The garden lay there beyond its screen of brambles, but the space looked fantastic... and very long untended.  Turned out from my chat with the venue manager that it has been sealed up for the last 30 years and it sets my mind racing with daydreams.  Might have to make a few enquiries, just to find out a bit more about it..... Unbelieveably gorgeous in my minds eye with veg and Tuckshop Flowers flourishing within. How exciting can daydreams be?

Is there life after ammi?

The midsummer hiatus is happening again - my early summer lovelies are going over and the later perennials have not yet got into their stride.  The ammi has finally flopped, smothering its neighbours in the border and I am beady-eyeing its drying flower heads, waiting for the moment when I can collect oodles of seed to sow in September for next year's crop.  It is definitely a flower I want lots of 2014 as it such a brilliant filler and looks fantastic with virtually anything.  It's only slight drawback is that when the flowers are very mature, they make the surface of any arrangement look like you've been holding this year's AGM for the Homepride flour graders convention.

Frothy ammi with sweet peas and mallow

The kitchen worktop is starting to host a collection of plastic pots containing cerinthe seeds at various stages of desiccation - so expensive to buy, but every plant that grows will provide you with ample quantities of black nuggety seed for to keep replenishing for several seasons. I'm going to have another go at September sowings for that as well - last year came to nothing, but I don't think I'm going to take 2012 weather as any kind of benchmark for normality.

It has been brilliant to have heat and dryness this year - makes me feel like I've emigrated!

The dahlias are flourishing in the current conditions, and sedums are fleshing up well to provide a glaucous counterpoint for bright flashy red 'Witteman's Best' in summer bunches.

I can tell that summer is in full swing, as the lavender hedge at the front of the house in sprouting into gloriousness, and my candelabra-style light fitting downstairs is sporting several bunches hanging upside down to dry, ready for arranging in lean times later in the year.  The statice that I sowed in late spring is just starting to come into flower, so I must remember to cut and dry some of that for autumnal arrangements too.

My roses are totally crispy and require constant deadheading, so I have to bid them farewell and await their second coming in autumn.  It really makes me feel like the year is whizzing by to know that their first show is already over.

Excuse the dangly wicker pig's legs in the top part of this shot. I know them well, but they even had me bewildered when I first studied this photo!

What is going to replace the ammi in the next wave of flowers?  It has played such a big role in the borders, that I'm going to feel a bit bereft without it.  You'll just have to watch this space to see what comes in to fill its boots - and so will I, as I'm really not sure what can follow in its wake at the moment.

Wordless Wednesday. Goodbye roses, hello dahlias.

Guzzgoggery and other tales

Where does the expression 'playing gooseberry' come from?  Why should a spare part at a date be compared with a small, hard, hairy fruit?  Is it because they lurk in obscurity beneath the leaves and spitefully scratch as you try to detach them from their friends?  Or is it because they're rather sour and very prickly?

Whatever the reason, the guzzgogs picked today have now had their nature sweetened with three pounds of sugar and are now resting as 6 warm jars of delicious jam.

Summer pudding, made with redcurrants, strawberries, raspberries and the first ripenings of my best ever cherry crop (i.e. more than 6 fruits), is chilling in the fridge, and my vases are overflowing with sweet peas.

I had a new 'wow' today as I had my first sighting of blooms on a new dahlia 'Witteman's Best' - a lovely deep red on a long, strong stem.  Am willing them to produce lots more for cutting over the next few weeks.

Blackcurrants are also fast a-ripening in the abundant heat, and I'm hoping to be able to pick them in the next week or so. Found a recipe for making creme de cassis, so will add this to my boozy repertoire this year, along with more litres of damson gin.

My blog silence is testament, I suppose, to the amount of gardening that needs doing at the moment (both for myself and others) - seem to have little time to write as I'm either gardening, picking flowers or fruit, or dealing with the aftermath of these various activities.

Three weeks of glorious sunshine, unbroken by rain.  When was the last time we had that?  Welcome back summer - we've missed you!

Marvellous meadow or messy mankiness?

You may recall a few weeks ago at Gardener's World Live, that I was very taken with the Yorkshire Dales Millenium Trust Garden below.  Indeed, so were the judges and it received a silver gilt medal at this, an RHS affiliated show.

This set me to thinking yesterday as I wandered around the allotment, that beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also in the context it is found in. Spot the difference between the photo above and those below...

Both beautiful, naturalistic and immensely welcoming to wildlife.  The difference? The Yorkshire Dales garden won a medal, and the allotment will proabably get an 'untidy plot' notice before the season is out.  Seems a bit mad doesn't it?

Maybe at a show, a bit of naturalistic planting is a relief from the landscaping and manicured meticulousness of many of the gardens, whereas at an allotment, nature unadorned surrounds the tended plots and their tenants are trying (often vainly) to hold back the tide which threatens at any moment to engulf their little patch of land.

Perhaps allotment committees should take a leaf out of the RHS judges' book, and put on a non fruit-and-vegetable hat when looking at the merits of a neglected patch? 

A rosy glow.

My world smells lovely at the moment.

Can you ever have too many roses?  I suppose the answer to that question depends on how much you can stomach squishing greenfly between your thumb and forefinger, as that seems to be a fairly incessant task at present.

Have been cutting my Constance Spry, Gertrude Jekylls, New Dawn and Falstaff to make some lovely scented bunches for my market stall, and have even braved the thorny stems of the picture perfect noisette, Felicite Parmentier - so blush pink and lovely despite the spikes.

New Dawn and Contance Spry - soft, pink and lovely.

Finding the perfect cups to match them is always fun - I don't especially like Royal Albert's 'Old Rose' pattern, but you would think it had been designed specially to host Falstaff and Absolutely Fabulous, my yellow stalwart.

Dark Falstaff roses with the yellow floribunda Absolutely Fabulous

On the back of all this romantic rosiness, I even braved a trip to the rather gorgeous local wedding shop last week to offer them a weekly bunch in exchange for displaying my card.  The flowers do look like they have found their rightful home amidst all the wedding gowns, so am hoping (and feeling scared) about getting some enquiries via that route. Mind you, I can remember feeling the same about market stalls earlier in the year and now take these in my stride.

I'm spoilt for choice in the garden at the moment for scent, colour and form. Even picked my first dahlia last week, so am hoping that they will all start swinging into action over the next few weeks. 

Must get down to the allotment today to tie in all my sweet peas and to check on the progress of the soft fruit. Am pretty sure the gooseberries will be ready for picking, and with any luck the fat pigeons will not have torpedoed the netting on my cherry tree.  Last time I checked, it looks like being my best ever cherry crop (the tree is now about 5 years old), so am very excited as they are one of my favourite summer eats.  The redcurrants in my gardens are also starting to blush and I'm hoping that the ones on the plot are slightly further on as they get a bit more sun in that location.  I sense a jam making extravaganza in the next few weeks so will have to start burning the midnight oil to process all my garden bounty at this rate!