Pavement Flowers: Taraxacum officianale
Spanish Bluebells with Japanese Azalea
Some plants are so companionable, it’s rare to find one growing wild without the other. Daisies, clover, dandelions and buttercups would be one example from Lancashire; nettles and blackberries, another.
While azaleas and bluebells can flower together, it’s not considered a classic pairing. They remind me of a friend who, on learning that my sweetheart and I were a couple, observed that was “a cosmic joke on the universe.” Continue reading “Spanish Bluebells with Japanese Azalea”
Wisteria Flowers
In its few days of glory each year, when heavy with fresh, fragrant, pea-type flowers, few climbing plants are more spectacular.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
The Last Days of Ebullient Ralph Sowell’s Daffodil Collection
My sweetheart was sorry to hear that his affable gardening friend Ralph Sowell of Jackson, Mississippi, had died and, because his printing company’s property was to be repurposed, his raised beds brimming with many dozens of award-winning daffodils and hybrid daylilies had to go.
It turned out that the garden needed to be emptied more quickly than expected, and unfortunately the daffodils were at the peak of bloom or just about to flower. Bulbs physically empty out when they produce flowers and need a few weeks of sunlight energy hitting the growing leaves to re-fatten for next season. The size and diversity of Ralph’s collection added an extra challenge. Continue reading “The Last Days of Ebullient Ralph Sowell’s Daffodil Collection”
Flower of the Day: Crocus
Rosa ‘Tranquillity’ After Dusk
“You live a normal life and it’s quite difficult to realise that this normal life is coming to an end.”
– Man in Ukraine, BBC interview, 24th February 2022
An Oddness of Lady Slipper Orchids
Becky is asking for odd squares throughout February and I believe that these lady slipper orchids qualify.
‘Lady slipper’ is the name familiarly used for orchids in the Cypripedioideae family. Popular plants, they appeal to gardeners and photographers because they play infinite variations on a well-known tune. Continue reading “An Oddness of Lady Slipper Orchids”
Susan Rushton 