Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
An English Rose that pretty much has it all. The flowers are huge, fragrant, and very distinctive because of their deeply cupped flower form, although you can’t really appreciate the depth of the bloom from this angle. The colour is classic rose pink. It’s a shrubby type of rose, but fairly compact, with stems sturdy enough to bear the weight of the flowers. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra Of Kent’”
Narcissus ‘Altun Ha’ is a yellow reverse bi-colour daffodil. In contrast to the cream petals / yellow cup combination we more often see in daffodils, the outer petals of N. ‘Altun Ha’ are yellow and the cup, creamy white, paling as the flower ages. Continue reading “Narcissus ‘Altun Ha’”
The word ‘verdant’ seems designed for this herbaceous perennial woodlander. Not quite all green, it has yellow flowers that emerge in winter and persist for some time amongst a mound of leaves. Beth Chatto’s website calls Sanicula epipactis ‘an endearing little plant’; I’ll add that the flowers form a cheerful congregation.
They are tiny, clustered ankle high in button-sized domes, surrounded by a collar of lime green bracts. Later, leaves push up between them, gradually unfurling as their stems lengthen. Continue reading “Green Flowers: Sanicula epipactis”
A fine pot of the spring flowering, pale lilac, species crocus, Crocus paschei, was exhibited at the Iris reticulata show by Sue Bedwell, taking first place in its class.
The flowers have a distinctive yellow throat and orange stamens. These ones had luminous petals with delicate veining, but the flowers can sometimes be a darker shade of lilac. Continue reading “Crocus paschei and Iris Seeds”
Continue reading “Gallery Of Orchids From RHS Wisley’s Glasshouse”
RHS Garden Wisley has a wonderful collection of deciduous Calanthe orchids in flower now in the Glasshouse. This plant was labelled Calanthe William Murray gx. Its upper petals are white with pink bottom lips and a central section shaped like a nose.
There are two subgenera of Calanthe. Preptanthe ones like this are winter-deciduous orchids that die back to peculiar structures called pseudobulbs. Hairy flowering stems appear from near their base and bear a cascade of flowers that weigh the stems down into a graceful arc. Continue reading “Flowering Orchid: Calanthe William Murray gx”
Green flowers are not always as subtle as they might appear – some of them are very striking. Today I’m sharing pictures of some of my favourite green hellebores.
Helleborus argutifolius produces one sturdy stem thickly clustered with flowers and buds a few shades lighter than the darker green leaves, and with golden stamens. The flowers persist for weeks or even months as with all hellebores, eventually forming equally striking seed heads, pollinators permitting. Like Helleborus foetidus (below) this is widely grown in the UK and can be found in many winter gardens.
This particular Helleborus foetidus has dark, purple tinged foliage and pretty purple lines around the edges of the petals (or sepals). At a guess, it is part of the Wester Flisk group. H. foetidus is an architectural plant, not because of its height, but because of the stems of elegant, tiered buds that hang like bells above deep, palmate foliage. Continue reading “Green Flowers: Hellebores”
