power plant

I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her lovely weekly meme, but I am actually cheating a little this week as I am away in the UK visiting my family at the moment. And today is my Dad’s 92nd birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! So my ‘vase’ is a sweet dish and the ‘sweets’ are all dried Strawflowers (Helichrysum) that I have been plucking all summer from plants in the garden and in my flower containers. Most of them seem to be these rich dark colours. The pale pink ‘Silvery Rose’ and the ‘Lemon yellow’ ones obviously didn’t do as well as the ‘Purple Red’. I really liked the orangey tones of the ‘Copper’ one too. I also planted a smaller, quite different type of strawflower called ‘Helipterum roseum’ – see the small pink one in the photo? I had a few pale pink and white ones flower, but they were not very heat tolerant and soon went over. I decided to just pinch the Helichrysum off the stalks as the stalks are not only very flimsy after drying, but also they had so many mor...

For readers not familiar with the term ‘Lovely jubbly’, made famous by the lovable Del Boy in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ back in the 80s, it simply means really lovely, fantastic, great! The origins of the phrase go back further apparently (see this article for more details) but I only know the more recent use of it. And that is the best way I can describe the Zinnias, Calendula, Dahlias and Echinacea I used for my vase this week. These colours, all put together, simply make me happy! The zinnias I planted out in the garden have struggled, since I rarely water the flower beds and it has been such a dry summer. But growing them (and dahlias) in containers or pots has worked extremely well; they were put next to my tomato plants which are given a drink daily, so I could not forget to water them too. And this is the reward. Lovely jubbly! The Echinacea (and Calendula) on the other hand are fine in the flower beds and have proved themselves to be extremely drought-proof. In ...

Borago officinalis… and bee  

It has been a good year for the bees…. very sunny all spring and summer, with little rain and hardly any storms. There are a couple of plants that are smothered in bees and other pollinators at the moment, and I decided to dedicate a vase to them as I join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly meme. Follow the link to see other Monday vases from around the world. So, first of all the Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) has recently begun to open and it is already very popular with busy insects. I love seeing this splash of yellow in the countryside as it signals late summer and the onset of my favourite time of year. And in the Words and Herbs Bed the Agastache is one of the bee magnets. This one is A. ‘Blue Fortune’. These were the starting point for my vase – two tall plants! Another bee favourite (butterflies too) is Verbena bonariensis, also tall, so I added some of that, along with some Winter Savory from the Herb Bed and one sprig of the very tall Veronicastrum ‘Dia...

Ceropegia sandersonii   –  (Regensburg Botanical Gardens)

Another week of unseasonably cool and wet weather has kept me out of the garden this week. Nonetheless, I have been picking flowers, blueberries and vegetables in between showers, sowing some Echinacea and browsing my favourite websites for spring bulbs… I still have to slim down my long list though, as I remind myself of all the planting involved! Sunday afternoon was like much of last week and I had to make use of the gaps between showers to cut some flowers for my Monday vase. And it is looking very much like late summer… The yellow perennial Rudbeckia are flowering so a few were cut as a starting point… these were actually watered in our dry period as they were on the brink of shrivelling up completely, but they have bounced back and their bright lemon y yellow is most welcome! A tall mandarin Zinnia (not sure of its name) adds to the citrus vibes, along with some orange Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’. I then decided to cut a Dahlia – yes, I succumbed to temptation and h...