Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
I’m not 100% sure if this is perennial honesty or the transitory kind, but I’d guess the former. Giveaways would include the seed heads which are pointed ovals rather than the classic coin shape, and the lower leaves which are heart shaped. Continue reading “Lunaria (Honesty)”
All flowers are miraculous but some more than others. Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Starry Eyes’ is one you’ll recognise next time you see it, even if, like me, you have to look up its name. Continue reading “Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Starry Eyes’”
Why is it that we like to identify plants? To check whether it is safe or to eat or not, perhaps, or as a first step in working out how to buy one. To check if it is generally regarded by tastemakers as a weed or as a fit plant for a garden. But there’s also a great satisfaction in being able to name a plant just because we can. We feel closer to things we can name.
In April and early May, walking through fields and woods and peeking into gardens, we’ll often see plants with tiny, blue flowers that lift our spirits. They can be solitary, but more often, they are spreading.
Their pure blue flowers are classic forget-me-not style, the simplest of flower shapes with a starry look. Tiny, open flowers about as big as our smallest fingernail contain five rounded petals around a yellow, orange or white centre. But is it a forget-me-not? Perhaps it is, perhaps not.
Continue reading “Variations on a Theme: Forget-me-not, Heartleaf or Green Alkanet?”
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”
1. This isn’t one of the more commonly grown dwarf winter irises, possibly Iris reticulata ‘Fabiola’, but I stand to be corrected. The dark blue and white falls have a flash of yellow. Continue reading “Six On Saturday From RHS Garden Wisley”
RHS Garden Wisley’s houseplant exhibition is kooky and wry: an elaborate conceit. A Victorian house has been abandoned to the houseplants which, in the absence of humans, have made themselves at home.
An abundance of greenery may convey a derelict feel as visitors enter, but it soon becomes clear that everything is carefully arranged and tended. We’re visiting the best-behaved invasive houseplants in the history of mankind. My own ‘triffid’ is much less mannerly. Continue reading “The Giant Houseplant Takeover: A Review With Pictures”
