Six on Saturday | Orchard flowers

Six on Saturday is hosted by the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world who share six things from a garden on a Saturday. I usually join in from my garden in Cornwall which is recorded on my Cornwall blog, naturally. But this week I shall be travelling home after a week away from the county, the first time in almost a year!

So what better way to re-open my garden blog (which has been dormant for 18 months) than a visit to the lovely orchard in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey where tree blossom and wild flowers were a heady delight. The scent of cow parsley and hawthorn drifted through the air which was alive with the music from a choir of songbirds.

Hawthorn blossom

Camassia

Buttercups and Cow Parsley

Frothy cow parsley

Common daisies

Buttercups and Cow Parsley

Hawthorn buds

“Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, you decide. Join in!”

See here for the participant’s guide.

Six on Saturday

Flowers on Friday

I just managed to go up the hill to see the last of the foxgloves this week in between all the rain we have been having. I was surprised to also see signs of the Bell Heather in flower which seems a little premature to me. Maybe this cold spell is tricking the wild flowers into thinking that autumn is on its way. It certainly seems like it!

Folklore: Originally the plant was referred to as folksglove, which was a reference to fairies because of the plants grow in woodland. The ‘glove’ part of their name was simply due to the flowers looking like glove fingers.

Flowers on Friday

On a trip down to the Lizard peninsula last Saturday (before the horrid rain and wind re-appeared) I discovered a whole lot of Geranium sanguineum, (common names bloody crane’s-bill or bloody geranium) that I didn’t see last year. These lovely vivid magenta-pink flowers with palmately-lobed leaves are so much nicer than the Herb Robert and Shining Cranesbill that colonise my garden. Though I do have some of these growing in my gravel garden that were bought from a nursery.

“Oh, do not frown,
Upon this crown
Of green pinks and blue geranium”

– Louisa May Alcott, “Dear Grif”

Bee #1

This week I am going to give you a week of bees. Or hoverflies. Though the bees have definitely outnumbered them this year. Planting bee friendly plants has drawn them into the garden, but the most bees I have seen on any one plant (Giant Scabious / Cephalaria gigantea ) was in Trelissick Gardens on Sunday. They were swarming with bees – three or four to a flower.

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Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and a very fuzzy bee in my garden.

Hedge Woundwort is a tall, hairy perennial that grows in hedges, woods and on waste ground, where its tall spires of crimson-purple flowers stand out among the lushness of green growth of other plants. The flowers are arranged in whorls around the central stem. They are hooded, with the lower lip beautifully variegated with white against the crimson background. Bees love this plant and are frequent visitors.  I love how he clings on to the lower lip with his two-toed feet (yes really, take a look) and then buries his proboscis into the hood.

Plant Portrait

Myosotis sylvatica (Wood Forget-me-not)

This pretty spring-flowering plant scatters its seeds all over the sunny side of my garden. Despite pulling up dozens of plants each autumn come the spring and it is everywhere. I love the azure blue flowers with the white or yellow centres and the pinkish buds of the clusters of five-petalled flowers. The Wood Forget-me-not is also an excellent source of nectar and pollen for all kinds of insects including bumblebees and butterflies.

Macro Monday #57

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Daucus carota / Wild Carrot

Also known as Queen Anne’s lace this is a dainty, frothy wildflower. Unlike cultivated carrots, the wild carrot’s root is tough and stringy and not particularly palatable. Wild carrot can be often be found growing on grassland, cliffs, roadsides and in hedge banks.

Wild carrot flowers in the summer (June to August). However, being an umbellifer, its skeletal frame often adds a stark beauty to the winter landscape.

Germander speedwell

Speedwells (Veronica spp.) are pretty, blue-flowered perennials that look attractive in a flower-rich lawn. However, their ability to root quickly, even from small sections, means they can quickly get out of hand in both lawns and borders. Germander speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys) is a stronger growing, coarser species than V. filiformis, flowering March to August. It is native in grassland, open woodland and hedgerows throughout the British Isles. It is usually troublesome in less frequently mown grass but can adapt to, and survive under, close mowing.

Speedwell

The flower is probably smaller than the nail on my little finger. But the macro lens makes it look a lot bigger. I spotted this in my garden on Sunday afternoon.

Wild flower portrait: Winter Heliotrope

Winter heliotrope (Petasites fragrans) is found in damp places such as hedgerows and woodlands where it forms large patches of heart or kidney-shaped leaves. Petasites is from the Greek petasos, a broad-brimmed hat worn by shepherds. Fragrans of course means fragrant. It has hairy stems and pretty star-shaped flowers that have a delightful vanilla scent, though only male flowers are produced in the UK. True heliotropes are in the borage family, winter heliotropes in the daisy family. Though heliotrope is also used to describe the colour ‘pink-purple‘

It was introduced, as an ornamental from the Mediterranean and North Africa and is now naturalised in lowland Britain though not frost resistant so very rarely found in the north of the country.

It is one of the earliest sources of nectar for insects, flowering in January through to March. I discovered these clumps in the hedgerow near Trencrom Hill.

My first wild flower of the year. And not one to introduce to the garden as apparently they spread at an alarming rate and are difficult to eradicate. They are pretty though.

Macro Monday #33

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White Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a pretty little wild flower with tiny,  fragrant, white to rose, five petal flowers, forming flat-topped clusters. The foliage is equally pretty and delicate with long fern-like leaves.

Also known as: Common yarrow / nosebleed plant / old man’s pepper / devil’s nettle / sanguinary / milfoil / soldier’s woundwort / thousand-leaf / and thousand-seal and used historically to staunch blood from wounds as well as being used in many herbal remedies. The English name yarrow comes from the Saxon (Old English) word gearwe.

It attracts predatory wasps, ladybirds and hoverflies.

Macro Monday #24

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Cornish Native Black Bee on Common Hogweed Umbellifer

The British Black Bee (Apis mellifera mellifera), or  European Dark Honeybee, was common until the beginning of the 20th Century. Fully adapted for the cooler climate she was responsible for the pollination of the wild flowers you see in the British Isles today. Sadly a virus practically wiped the species out. I can’t be certain that this IS one of those descendants, but it does have a very dark bottom. Whether it is or it isn’t we need to do everything we can to encourage our bees.

Source: The Barefoot Beekeeper