Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
While I enjoy seeing foxgloves in gardens, I can’t help comparing the straight, sturdy, varieties of commerce to wild foxgloves that weave around Lancashire’s fields and country lanes.
Rarely without some form of wave or bend – the ‘nod’ of folklore – wild foxgloves can grow with aplomb wherever they find themselves, high or low. Much of their charm is in their willy-nillyness. Continue reading “The Wildness of Foxgloves (Digitalis Purpurea)”
It may not be the first English garden you’d associate with a Palm House, but Sefton Park has one of the prettiest. These tiered buildings hark back to times when palm trees were enough of a curiosity to justify building a magnificent structure to keep palms alive through our winters. Continue reading “Architectural Glasshouses, Greenhouses and Plants”
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Rosa ‘Caldwell Pink’ produces abundant sprays of rosette flowers; repeats from mid spring until the first frosts; and can be grown organically without spraying for pests and diseases. Drought tolerant once established, it thrives in full sun. Heat and humidity, the downfall of many a rose, suit it just fine.
‘Caldwell Pink’ is one of the top five roses my sweetheart recommendeds for Mississippi. For the last 3 or 4 weeks, sprays of neat little rosette flowers have been dancing over our shrub which occupies a choice spot at the front of the house. Reminded of its charms daily, he set about sourcing another for a museum project, but a tour of local garden centres drew a blank. After an appeal, rose lover, Jim Skipper, kindly donated one he sourced in South Mississippi.
It set me wondering why more suppliers are not stocking this easy-care variety. Continue reading “Rosa Caldwell Pink Repeats and Can Be Grown Organically. What’s The Catch?”
Sofia invited us to post images that convey a mood. During 2020, I shared a series of pictures for dreaming and was surprised, looking back, that the first and last had not featured. Perhaps they seemed impossibly far away from the reality of the time. Too inaccessible, too reflective. Continue reading “In an Outdoors Mood”
This ethereal, drift-forming woodland plant opens from puckered, lilac-pink buds to pure blue flowers shaped like bells, cowslips or petticoats, depending on your perspective. Continue reading “Mertensia virginica (Virginia Cowslip; Virginia Bluebells)”
Susan Rushton 