Hellebores and I

New Trees: Recent Introductions to Cultivation by John Grimshaw, Ross Bayton and illustrated by Hazel Wilks. Amazon

I am going to Madeira for a sunny break before the gardening gets tougher. I hope to sample the orchids that grow on the islands and even bring home the occasional example.

Conker collecting has encouraged many a stick to be thrown into a Horse Chestnut tree. The candle or flower heads are even more spectacular than the crop of conkers that they give birth too.

Most Bromeliad of the thousands of species are tropical plants. In the UK they make good house plants and pot plants for a conservatory. Others plants in the same family are the  genus including  Aechmea, Neoregelia, Vriesea and Guzmania

The British have a fascination with trees be they humble or ‘Remarkable’,’Ancient’ or saplings, ‘Great’ or just plain good.

The Lime is a tall growing well shaped tree which is often grown along avenues and public places in the UK. The flowers have an exquisite fragrance.

A water loving tree that is comparatively short lived at about 150 years. It is fast growing and can often be found near river banks.

Ulex europaeus better known as Gorse, furze, furse or whin is a very prickly shrub of the pea family. Western gorse Ulex gallii is frequent in the western side of Britain and is relatively low growing yet robust. Dwarf gorse or Ulex minor is a low growing, sprawling shrub.

After salad crop failures in Spain and shortages of courgettes, broccoli and other ‘long distance’ vegetables gardeners could to worse than focus on traditional and non-traditional root crops.

Common Ash trees row widely in the UK and other Ashes grow in Asia and America. Our Ash has dark almost black buds and some species have interesting flowers but it is as a tree the provided wood to make bows that the Ash is best known in Britain.

From the National Christmas Tree Federation ‘For Christmas trees, overall color of Norway spruce is fair to excellent, but needle retention is considered poor unless the trees are cut fresh and kept properly watered. Growth during the first 10 years after field planting is relatively slow and 8 to 11 years are required to grow a 6-7 foot tree.’Above in the public domain because its copyright has expired