Small neat leaves
Spores underneath
Found on a wall
Old stone
Leaves like scales
On an aligators belly
Strong and tough
You survive
Winter
Tag: Gardening
Flowers in January
Slightly withered, but seen on my walk today. These daisy type flowers brightened my day. They are in the top of a wall and sheltered slightly under a bush.
I should have collected some of the seeds. I think it’s an Osteospermum, a plant from South Africa, partly because of the leaf shape? They look bigger than Asters? The colours are lovely with their deep yellow centres. If you know what they are please let me know?
That basket
I said I would post again about this hanging basket. I’m afraid the frost a couple of nights ago and minus 3.3°c put paid to the begonias, but some of the other plants are still going. Now they are covered in snow and more is forecast over the next few days…. I will see what it looks like whan it’s thawed a bit……
Rose
A rose, red as blood. Thorns or thornless, a joyful thing. Here is life and beauty, scent of musk, blooms that attract bees and insects. I remember the rose bush at home when I was a child. It had bright pink roses climbing up some trellis work. We used to collect the petals and try and make scented water out of them. It didn’t really work, but it was fun trying. The rose bush must have been eight or ten feet high and as wide. In the summer the scent was fantastic. I remember it was next to an old shed and the paint on the door was green and bubbling off because of the sunlight. The contrast between the fresh roses and the shed door was so interesting….
Surprise Apple
You don’t normally find apples still on trees at this time of year. But this was plucked from the back of an apple tree, that sits amongst lots of bushes, this afternoon. Never found one this late in the year before.
Speaking if late apples, hubby bought home four or five little crab apples from branches overlooking the canal on his walk last weekend. I told him not to bring more home as this will be food for small animals or birds over winter.
Standard Fushias
Outside Portmeirion pottery shop in Stoke. Standard Fushias are still in flower on 23.12.20,some of the leaves are looking a bit sad, but it’s testament to how warm it has been over the few months. My hubby found a ladybird on him last night after he had come in out of the garden. I dropped it off in a flowerpot so it would have somewhere to shelter.
The crazy temperatures that global warming is causing mean that things are staying in flower longer, but there are not many insects around to pollenate them. I pray humanity does work to regulate the worlds temperatures.
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Hanging around…
Looking out of the kitchen window and the hanging basket I have taken photos of over the months is still surviving. A lot of the flowers have gone. There are still five or six different plants with flowers on them. The other hanging baskets are wilting. But it’s almost the shortest day (tomorrow) how is it coping!? If we ever get a cold night or snow it might die back. In any case I will post again if it’s still going.
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Waiting
For daffodils
For tulips
For helibores
And hyacynths
Start with snowdrops
And irises.
Crocuses
And primrose.
Pushing up through
Bare. Cold ground
Warmth arrived
Each. Flower head
Brings. Spring
Closer.
December hanging basket.
How is this possible. The hanging baskets are still alive and flowering despite a few frosts and cold winds. It’s not just one plant though. The flowers are still on four or five plants. Maybe they are so tightly packed that they are sheltering each other. I also think the flowers were not pollenated because of a lack of insects? I will keep posting about this till they wilt and die off.
nasturtiums
I love the way they defy rain, it looks like the water droplets are being resisted by oil. And yet the leaves are not oily. The flowers (now long gone) and the seedpods are edible, I know. Not sure about the leaves. If you eat a ripe flower it tastes something like orange and pepper mixed. Beautiful as a decoration for salads or floated in a summer punch.
Why can’t summer stay all year round? I guess because sometimes you need the wind and the snow to let you know you are still alive and not just dreaming. Halcion days, something like that, does halcion mean kingfisher ( I have a vague memory).
Im sitting here typing in my front bedroom in a teeshirt, jumper, trousers and thick dressing gown and still shivering. Trying to save on gas and electricity. Not too cold in the rest of the house, but up here it doesn’t warm up easily. Anyway, I will dream of a nasturtium flower floating in a gin and tonic with ice… Nice!
Mallaband-Brown 