Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
Before I post a flower (almost always) I google it. Then (almost always) I take a minute or so to marvel at the different flower pictures that have appeared in my image search results, listed under the same name. Unusually, I found nothing when searching for the name on the plant label, so I’m not sure if it it was a cultivar name, Echinacea ‘Dark Stems’, or purely descriptive – an unknown pink coneflower with dark stems. Continue reading “Echinacea With Dark Stems (And A Request)”
While this wooden footbridge prompted my post, I thought I’d add a few words about Old Vicarage Gardens in East Ruston where it can be found. Like many English gardens, it’s a series of themed garden rooms that make the most of micro-climates, both natural and created.
Being close to the North Sea, the garden doesn’t have the arid conditions or unrelenting sun we associate with a desert landscape but yucca, aloe, agave, dasylirion and cactus seem happy there in the Arizona-inspired Desert Wash. Continue reading “Decorative Arched Footbridge, Desert Wash, East Ruston, Norfolk”
Some English Roses are unique in colour and this is one of them. An unusual colour brings challenges describing it. Rosa ‘Summer Song’ used to be ‘a sophisticated shade of orange’, or ‘burnt orange’, but in checking, I note its breeder is now plumping for ‘orange red’.
Rosa ‘Summer Song’ is not a cut flower, but I can see why florists would be drawn to it. Here it is but half open – enough to show the promise inside, but closed enough to last for a few days (with fingers crossed). Continue reading “Rosa ‘Summer Song’ in a Flower Arrangement”
HeyJude’s challenge ‘Look Up’ prompted me to share some pictures taken along the routes to Jubilee Tower and the story of how it came to be set on the moor above my home town of Darwen in Lancashire. Continue reading “Darwen’s Jubilee Tower”
I’m aware that rose cultivars achieve something approaching immortality when small parts of the plant are passed from person to person down the generations, but it still seems amazing to think that Rosa ‘Queen Of Denmark’ has been around since 1816.
Its bicentenary came and went with less fanfare than that accorded a human queen, but the important thing is that people are quietly growing it around the world. You may know it as Rosa ‘Königin von Dänemark’. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Queen of Denmark’ | Pink Alba Rose”
Herb Robert is one of many common names for a wild geranium (Geranium robertianum) widely found across Britain. It’s easy to overlook the spidery plant and its small, simple flowers. Continue reading “Herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum)”
Susan Rushton 