From the first week in January: What with the daytime temperatures of early January being a relatively balmy 15°C or so, we’ve had some fine weather for a spot o’ bumbling about. Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ had a steady flow of visitors for a few sunny days. It’s guests found plenty to forage and …
To see in the New Year, we headed up to Bakewell with some friends. We arrived on New Year’s Eve: we ate, we drank, we made merry, we almost forgot when midnight was, at some point we finally went to bed. Morning was hot on the heels of bedtime but we awoke bushy tailed nonetheless, …
Things are pretty quiet on the Corydalis and Dicentra front. There are a few leaves here and there, making the most of any fine autumn weather that passes through. The tuberous Corydalis are tucked away under a blanket of leaf mould; no doubt they are fidgeting around beneath their cover, sending roots into the freshly …
Dactylicapnos torulosa is a fascinating annual climber. It is often slow to start in the Birmingham climate I am growing it in, but it soon cracks on once the weather warms up. Once it gets going, it provides plentiful, pendant, yellow flowers. A novel feature, which extends it’s season of interest, are the twisted red …
Hello there! Just a brief post about a few things that piqued my interest this week. We’ll begin with an aberrant little Capnoides sempervirens (alba to be precise, which I do like to be where possible). The second item serves as another appendix to my original post on roots. My preoccupation with roots has become …
Capnoides sempervirens and another Root Appendix Read More »
We; gardeners, amateur botanists, plant enthusiasts; spend much of our time waxing lyrical about the various merits of various plants. Flowers get the most attention, leaves and foliage next, stems and bark and seeds and seed heads come lower down on the scale, often featuring as little more than curiosities. Roots very rarely figure at …
Last week we all traipsed off to North Wales for five days, much fun was had by all but the focus here is on the botanical. Heathland Highlights On the second day of our trip we thought we’d see how the little ‘uns coped with a Big Old Hill, so we headed down the road …
I’ve been admiring the cheery charms of Dactylicapnos torulosa of late. It’s an annual climber that used to go by the name of Dicentra torulosa before the taxonomy gods wielded their mighty pens, and changed it to Dactylicapnos. Anyway, it’s a tenacious little thing: after climbing to about 6 feet in height, it unfurls it’s …
We’re in the middle of an absolute scorcher of a week here in Birmingham (and elsewhere). Much has been made of the fact that we’ve been served an Amber weather warning for heat, but it ought to be noted that weather warnings for heat were only brought in as recently as June. As I’ve been …
Last Sunday, we managed to drag ourselves away from the garden and allotment to venture into the world outside. Our chosen destination was an RSBP reserve just North of Birmingham, bordering with Staffordshire: Middleton Lakes. As luck would have it, it turned out to be a fine day; the previous day was pretty stormy, but …