Something exotic

In suitably warm autumnal colours, LC. Blazing Saddles adds an exotic touch to my study.

Joy of Pears....

One of the great things about the garden is the three cordon pears next to the greenhouse. They have a pleasing dark bark in the winter, white blossom and attractive leaves. And we have the pears! Unlike the apples where the big tree gives us lots of rather tasteless fruit and the cordons give us one or two apples if we are lucky, the pears do really well. I'm starting to pick them now and after a day or two indoors they are ready for eating and are truly wonderful! Something else I found you can make out of pears...is the second picture of a leaf turning colour..put it through some digital transformations and you have a very pretty picture.

Quick, cheap and easy..and ORANGE

It's suddenly become very grey in England and so these almost virulent orange blooms are most welcome. I mistakenly thought these liked dry stoney places and they didn't make much of a show until the rains came. When we have frosts they will turn overnight into a mush but the seeds are cheap so I'll get some more for next year. They make great plants for bare patches and when you decide exactly what you want in a space it's not so much of a heartache to pull them up. The white butterflies like them too!

10 years on..flowers at last!

At last I have reflowered Cyclamen rohlfsianum! I have had flowering sized plants, some even bought it flower, but never managed to coax a flower from it myself. Last year I increased the minimum temperature in the greenhouse to 5C. But probably the main thing was to give more water during the summer rest and when starting to grow. For two years previously I had buds but they aborted, I assumed because I had over watered. Now it seems I had underwatered. maybe a little too much water this time as the flowers are obscured by the leaves. Still, I have three plants in flower right now. The next challenge is to get seedlings into flower, I read that if you have one in a pot they sulk, however until a few years back I only ever got one to germinate at any one sowing.

Michaelmas Daisy

The traditional Michaelmas daisy photographed in the late afternoon sun. I love these plants and luckily here they seem to be free of mildrew, it's just to windy for the fungus perhaps.

Cattleya

I think this is LC "Tropical Pointer", I picked it out a number of years ago and I really like this one. Since moving two years ago the orchids have really suffered. I have lost most of the Oncid types, some of the Phals but most of the Cattleya types have kept going.
These don't flower very regularly and the flowers last 3-4 weeks so when they do come out it is more an an event!

Daisy Autumn

Summer is coming to an end and the various daisies are coming to the fore. This one has been out since August, it will continue until October. The other dominant daisy is the Michaelmas Daisy, there are several in the garden and travelling on trains now you can see drifts of them flowering by the track side.

Something else blue

Something from my local travels, an Adonis Blue pictured on a cloudy day at Lardon Chase about 30mins drive from here. I'm hoping one day to put up a webpage on butterflies but progress is slow..they move more than my plants do! Anyway back to the Adonis Blue, these are somewhat rare, confined to hot Chalk downland, they are probably at their northern limit in the UK around here. In the garden, for the UK, the most common blue butterfly is the Holly Blue, a sort of powder blue with a dark edge and silvery underwings, feeding on Holly berries in the springtime and with a second brood lays eggs on Ivy berries. If you are interested in such things I recommend joining Butterfly Conservation who help conserve butterflies and moths and their habitats http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/index.php

End of Summer?

Maybe..it's certainly cloudy and cooler. It's also rained more so many plants are now reblooming. left is our big white hibiscus, it doesn't start flowering until quite late, but it's worth the wait!

Another blue thing...

This time a Campanula, Campanula Bumblebee. I originally bought it for a trough but when I saw that half of it disappeared within two days of planting it out, I hastily moved it to the Alpine House. It's nothing like as vigorous as I expected and I could almost pass it off as Campanula piperi....

Trachelium asperuloides

Hope I got the name right, this plant had an even longer name a few years back. A great favourite of Roy Elliott I first got this in the mid 70s. When I restarted my collection in the 90s it was one of the first plants I got. A cushion (actually it is a campanula relative which runs slightly so if the main cushion goes it can sometimes be recovered, I even divided an 8 inch pan after ants built their nest in the middle of a plant) which in July is covered for 2-3 weeks with flowers, it's moment of glory.

Silene hookeri

A bit of a hooray moment, this is Silene hookeri. There are many imposters going around, especially in seed exchanges, but this is the true plant. Sowed this year I had about 6 plants in flower, all slightly different, this one is the darkest. Hopefully I will have some seed to keep these going as they really are lovely, about 2 inches and sprawling less than the rather poor small flowered forms I was able to but from nurseries.

June catch up2

Part of the rose thicket, this is the smaller flowered rose, just fantstic June to early July!

June catchup

Alstroemeria hookeri...probably. I got this from wild collected seed and while it's similar to the normal hookeri (about 6-8inches tall) the ground colour isn't pale salmon and green, this one is a sort of faded red velvet colour. After moving from the last greenhouse I thought I had lost all of these..they have a habit of escaping from the pot, the fleshy tuber like roots come out through the pot holes and into the sand, when you lift the pot the roots sever and the bits in the sand don't have growth points. I seem to have lost a yellow one (so that wasn't hookeri) but the "normal" hookeri and several of this one have survived. I'm tryin them under unshaded glass to keep them more compact and they do look better this year.

May 2

Same family and just as beautiful as the Anchusa, the forget-me-not. What a colour!

May 1 (Long time, no post)

Time pressure has meant I've got a bit behind on both the web page and the blog. But the pictures have been taken so I'm going to catch up on the blog. The plant left is Anchusa caespitosa, something that set the alpine world afire (well just a bit) back in the 60s. Then it became common and now it seems difficult to get again. Problem is that it grows very fast out of character under glass unless you are careful and I don't think it would survive outdoors here. Still a small plant but still a stunner.

Primula allionii page now up

Rather, the revised page is now up with the pictures from this season. All at http://markgriffiths.org/inspiringplants/alpines/primula_allionii.html

Website update - February Cottage Garden

At last the February Cottage garden page is up! It's been a very slow spring this year, but hopefully it will get there soon (please!). Go to http://markgriffiths.org/inspiringplants/world_gardens/cottagegarden_feb.html

Reticulate Iris

Just a taster for the Feb Cottage garden pages which hopefully be up in the next fortnight!

Primula allionii "Elizabeth Burrow"

First of the Primula allionii to flower this year, hopefully lots more to come. I'll be updating the current Primula allionii pages with new pictures as more plants come into flower.

A small celebration of spring....

ok, I admit it, I succumbed to the tempation of instant gardening with these cream primulas. I put these in a small planter outside the kitchen window. No doubt they have been grown under cover to be in bloom now, certainly they look pristine compared to their snail bitten brethren in the garden. Later they will go out into the top garden, hopefully before the vine weevil find them!

OOps, this didn't post previously!!!

More website updates - Cyclamen and Alpine house

Updates! The Cyclamen cyprium page is now up at http://markgriffiths.org/inspiringplants/cyclamen/cyclamen_cyprium.html Also added an "alpine house" page at http://markgriffiths.org/inspiringplants/alpines/alpinehouse.html

The year turns....

And the snowdrops are out to prove it! You can now see the pictures from the garden for December and January on my website at http://markgriffiths.org/inspiringplants/world_gardens/cottagegardenindex.html

The first daffodil...

well sort of, this is Narcissus romieuxii from Morrocco out in the greenhouse. I love the dwarf species Narcissus but they are self involved they rarely have time to love me back so they just fade away. I'm trying a few again and will try and remember to feed them more, that might have been the problem before.

Winter flowers...

Not so many out right now in this garden..I will have to start working on that! Here is a true winter flowering cherry, I'll have to look it up but whatever it is it's most welcome right now.

Something for nothing...

Well almost nothing. In October 2004 when I was packing up to move I "rescued" a number of Cyclamen seedlings that were growing in the sand in the old greenhouse. Most were C.coum but I found some that looked different. They looked like C.persicum which was odd as these seedlings were in the plunge material on the other side to the C.persicum stock. Perhaps I had shifted some sand or maybe the ants had moved them (I had an ant infestation in that area a few years ago and ants distribute the seed in the wild being atracted to the sticky seeds). Whatever, potted up they are the first C.persicum in flower this year, out just before Christmas.
These plants were line bred to create the "florist cyclamen" which are popular house plants. I find the original more attractive. I hope to renew the web page for this species. Apart from pale pink, there are almost white with a purple blotch, all pink, all white and all carmine.