Saxifraga Fortunei Cherry Pie

Sometime towards the end of last year, my friend Chris gave us a homegrown, blue pumpkin. I’m amazed to find that I don’t have a photo of it, but it was large, a fairly traditional pumpkin shape, and rather spiffingly blue. It sat on the dining room table for months, waiting for me to pluck up the courage to do something with it, which eventually happened last week.

Christmas guarantees a wide variety of leftovers that need eating up. If you can’t face another turkey curry, or bubble and squeak, then plan on putting together a pie this year.

The latest addition to the garden is a Gardman poppy bird feeder. I’ve popped it in the border and filled it with seed for the moment, but it can be used as a water dish in the summer – it’s made from painted cast iron. I was given mine by Gardman for review purposes, but they’re being sold to raise money for The Royal British Legion, as part of their annual poppy appeal. Gardman want to raise £200,000 for the charity, and 50p from the sale of each feeder will be donated. There’s a special bird food range to go with it, also including a donation to the poppy appeal.

This Stephania Pierre Growing Information  guide will teach you everything about pot size, compost, watering, planting care, and more!

Today, frequent GPOD contributor Cherry Ong is taking us along on a garden tour she was able to go on in June. The tour was part of a four-day plant-study weekend organized by the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, and the tour visited some beautiful gardens near Vancouver, Canada.

Georgia O’Keefee painted some brilliant portraits of red Poppies some times upto 3 feet wide and high, even bigger than the real thing in my garden.The last photo shows how Red and Green work well together on a canvas or in a garden setting. Oriental poppies are perennial and most Poppy species are easy to grow from seed of which 50 varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan

Picnic in the shade of Cherry Trees

This is largely from a post I did in 2013 with some updates. Seeing the colour in my garden and watching the single flowers close up for the evening I decided to buy some more seeds for next summer (I hope I can find the space to do them justice) I opted for ‘Copper Swirl’ by TM and for an extra 99p I got ‘Golden West Californian Poppy’ thrown in.  I am tempted to sow half of each packet shortly although the blurb on the packet suggests waiting until Feb or March next year.

Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy by Bill Terry from amazon Bill Terry is a leading North American authority on Asiatic poppies relates his own encounters with the blue poppy and shows how, given a suitable climate, a patient and persistent gardener can raise this most alluring of perennial plants. The origins of Meconopsis are expounded along with comments about those who first discovered and grew the plants. A personal account, fun to read and adds to the collective knowledge.

Flowering Cherry trees contribute most to the floral pageantry of spring blossom and they are easy to grow. Cherries are graceful and well shaped trees and many varieties have excellent Autumn colour. (Scarlet leaves of Prunus sargentii and pubesens, yellow of hybrids Pandora or Tai-Haku or coppery Ukon.)

There are enough different saxifraga within the genus to satisfy the most ardent plant collector and breeder.

However you spell Peony you will still be captivated by this family of Northern Hemisphere perennials. Lush flowers and foliage are a major attraction but there is also the opportunity to study and become involved in more detail with a concise family of interesting and often endangered species.