Nice flowers

What is this? I think it might be London pride? (Saxifraga Urbium) according to Google. I had remembered the name London Pride from when I was a child, we had it in our garden, so looked it up and it seems to match up. I have some in the back yard on the wall and I think its meant to be an alpine plant, so it likes sunny conditions. I like the little five petaled star shaped flowers that have prominent stamens. I found the plant at a garden centre but the label was missing. Love the pale pink flowers against the dark green foliage.

Close up

Flowers today, I thought they might be forget-me-nots but I’m not sure. The camera on my phone seems to be quite good if I can avoid shaking too much, so they are quite detailed in this photo Perhaps they are a type of Cranesbill? I like the way there is a reddish purple flower developing in the background. I love the bright green of the foliage, so luscious and fresh.

Cyclamen

A rescue from my sisters house. A pink cyclamen plant in flower. It fits in with the Christmas cactii, a similar shade of pink. I can’t find another place for it because there are radiators under the windows so they are only really good for germinating seedlings.

I would have bought all her other plants home with me to look after, it’s sad to think they are all sitting there in her house, in the cold. It’s sad I won’t speak to her on Christmas day, I won’t be able to share my thoughts, ask how things are going. Be interested in her family. Still, I will look at the Cyclamen and remember.

Passion flower

Yesterday in a garden centre, at the end of October we found this passion flower still in bloom. Its amazing how warm it has been over the last few weeks in Britain. Lasr week it was about 23° Centigrade in London and 19°s where we live. About 5 or 7° higher than usual. In some ways that’s good because we haven’t needed to put the heating on much. But it is unnatural. Apparently every month this year has been hotter than previous ones. Animals are not getting ready to hibernate, will they have enough food or energy to survive if the winter gets very cold. Who knows, it’s worrying.

Close-up poppy

I think this might be finished but I’m waiting for daylight to check the colours. I might tone down the white and I may add some blue tones to make it feel like the sky is being reflected in it. The poppy was real, but I took this from a painting I did of a photo so I might look at some images of poppies.

Pear time

Pears off our tree and oranges from the supermarket. This shows just how big our pears have grown this year. They needed picking as they won’t ripen on the tree. The tree was a small sapling from a woolworths store in Stoke twenty years ago or so, before the stores went bust. It’s now a tree about fifteen foot high and spreading branches about twenty or twenty five foot across. It grew leaning over because of the weight of the pears. I have to say they are very tasty when they are ripe. I think they are a conference style of pear. We have had around fifty or sixty pears but most of them are too high to reach, the ones in the bowl were low hanging.