…well, one bee, although there were several on the echinops above, E Arctic Glow’, when I was trying to take a photograph, but they wouldn’t stand still or long enough! The garden, is, however, currently swarming with bees and butterflies, which is good to see.
They certainly like dahlias, as I was chasing Wednesday’s red admiral butterfly around then to catch him with huis wings open, although there were none on the two dahlias below – firstly, ‘Blyton Stella’, which now has an almost fully open bloom and is indeed a perfectly acceptable shade, far more purple than the photo suggests, and secondly ‘Blue Bayou’, in a similar colour pallette and which doesn’t always achieve such perfect blooms as this. Blyton Stella is described as ‘lavender pink’, which is why I was a little concerned, but colour is so subjective; she is classed as a miniature decorative, although with blooms a projected 90- 115mm they are hardly small. When fully open they form a complete sphere, and after a few years of successful dahlia growing I decided this was my favourite type, the miniature and small decoratives.
As a subscriber to Gardening Which?, I trial a few seeds each year, one of which this year is Ipomoea lobata, commonly known as Spanish flag. Described as ‘a quick-growing annual climber, with cascades of flowers, starting flame-red at the tip and fading to cream. It will look spectacular for three to four months’, it grew sluggishly and although now sporting a few blooms it has still only grown to around 3 feet (90cm). I can imagine how colourful it would be when fully grown, but I don’t suppose I shall be growing it again.
After admiring bloggers’ chrysanthemums last year, I begrudgingly ordered some plug plants with a view to growing
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As far removed from an English cottage garden as you can travel, the passion flower (Passiflora) is one of the most theatrical and exotic of plants. The weird and wonderful blooms are embellished with many showy parts that together remind you of peering into a kaleidoscope as a child: in the centre, the anthers, stigmas, and ovary protrude over the filament rays, which are marked with circles of incredible colour.
A lot of new gardening and plant books have landed on my mat this spring, and I need to up my book reviewing game! I like to do them justice, and spend some time reading them before I write a review, so that does create a bit of a backlog. Right at the time when the garden is demanding my attention. Anyway, the book that has found itself at the top of the list is one that really encompasses the gardening zeitgeist – The Community Gardening Handbook, by Ben Raskin. I looked him up, and he has impeccable credentials. He’s currently Head of Horticulture for the Soil Association; prior experiences include working for Garden Organic, running a walled garden and being a Horticultural Advisor for the Community Farm near Bristol.
Today marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, which seems like a good time to take the next step on our space adventure. You choose the topic of bees in space, so here we go!
Another week in Lockdown, and another edition of Gardeners off World. We’re all now supposed to feel like astronauts, cooped up inside a small space with the same companions for weeks at a time. The barrage of isolation advice articles from astronauts, analog astronauts and Antarctic scientists continues. If you’re not bored of them yet, Space Nation has thoughts from Jane Poynter, who spent two years locked inside Biosphere 2 and Smithsonian magazine has spoken to people from all three groups of career isolators. I prefer Marina Koren’s article in The Atlantic, which explains why advice from astronauts may not be enough to help us survive a pandemic.
How will we pollinate plants in space? Join Emma the Space Gardener to discover why future space crops will need pollination, and how that might be achieved. And learn the history of bees in space, and whether our buzzy friends will be joining us on future space missions.
Interior designer Stephanie Hunt’s seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom Park City, Utah, home is a grown-up, glammed-up, sophisticated version of a funhouse—it’s got so many surprises and delights at every turn. And believe it or not, she got the inspiration for the home on a freezing winter trip to Reykjavík, Iceland. “We were there for a quick weekend trip and I was struck by how the simple barn structures—very close together—looked like one unit. Because we’re art collectors I wondered what it would feel like to have each pod or pavilion, if you will, developed in a simple, honest architectural style, connected by halls and glass elements, with the halls serving sort of in-home art galleries,” she explains.
Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.
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.
Oak trees conjure up images of Robin Hood and mystical Oak forests. Britain has made good use of Oak trees down the centuries. ‘From little acorns great Oak trees grow’