Welcome to an exploration of flowers that start with the letter “B”. From the stunning Begonia to the vibrant Bluebell, this list covers a wide range of flowers, each with its own unique charm.
01.06.2024 - 19:59 / ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com / Cathy
It wasn’t actually a lie, but I was misleading myself as well as anyone who reads my blog, when I talked yesterday about how behind the clematis were. In reality, it seems to be mostly the C viticella and C integrifolia that are either slow or not showing at all, whereas C texensis like ‘Princess Diana’ and ‘Duchess of Albany’ are as floriferous as usual although not yet in bud, and the few Group 2 clematis are growing and flowering (or about to) as usual, like the striking Clematis ‘Kingfisher’ above.
You might have noticed from pictures of the main borders that they are well-splashed with purples of allium and cerise of geraniums – the latter range from tall and sprawling G ‘Anne Folkard’ to a short variety, its label buried under foliage, trailing over the retaining wall. I love them all, especially the long-flowering varieties.
Another good do-er is the annual bunny tails grass, Lagurus ovatus, such a well-behaved and tactile grass and so quick and easy to grow from seed. This batch is from seed sown last autumn, but I usually sow it in spring as well although this year neglected to do so until a couple of weeks ago. I was taken aback to see a yellow Welsh poppy sneaking into the photo below, and will be dealing with it at my earliest opportunity!
Talking about good do-ers, I have this year been really surprised with Sweet William, technically a short-lived perennial but usually grown as a biennial, frequently growing into straggly and often unattractive plants, but I now have plants that have hung around for a few years and the substantial clump below, Dianthus ‘Alba’, could be described as stunning. I also have a dark pink variety D ‘Oeschberg’, not as substantial, but still doing pretty well, and I now plan to look
Welcome to an exploration of flowers that start with the letter “B”. From the stunning Begonia to the vibrant Bluebell, this list covers a wide range of flowers, each with its own unique charm.
If you want to put your BBC Gardeners’ World 2 for 1 Gardens entry card and guide to good use this year, The Savill Garden is a must-visit. Set like a jewel in the heart of Windsor Great Park, it’s a garden for all seasons, always filled with colour and sights to behold, but during the summer months especially you can delight in its magnificent roses.
Although our first proper opening of the garden is not till a week tomorrow, we had a group visit on Thursday, a mixed blessing, as it meant the garden had to be more or less ‘ready’ over a week sooner than it might otherwise have had to be. We didn’t have any group visits last year, the first year that we hadn’t, and this was the first time we had a visit before the main openings as I had previously avoided this – June is probably the most floriferous month, and sometimes we could be in limbo for two or three weeks after the main openings until all group visits were over, before we could loosen the reins a little. Interestingly, this gardening group, from one of the local villages, had previously visited us the first year we opened, although all but a handful of them were new members so the garden was new to them.
There’s nothing like the clean lines of freshly cut grass. But, what if we told you skipping your final step of bagging those grass clippings can actually help you grow lusher, thicker grass—and at no additional cost to you? Allowing your mower to leave behind grass clippings can have a variety of benefits for your lawn.
National Cucumber Day is a unique celebration that brings a refreshing twist to our calendars every June 14th. This day is not just about enjoying cucumbers in their natural, crunchy form but also about exploring the creative avenues this versatile vegetable offers. Families can turn this day into a fun, engaging, and delicious adventure, strengthening bonds over the love for cucumbers.
The napkins, cushion cover and table cloth seen here in Ivy Green
Most fruits have seeds lodged deep within their fleshy innards. But Mother Nature loves her exceptions! Read on to learn about those peculiar fruits that appear to have seeds on the outside.
This photo shows European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet floating with 1.2 million tomato seeds that launched to the ISS on 19 February 2017.
If you’d asked me a decade ago how I fare with houseplants, I would have told you, without question, the answer is horrible. Every plant I brought home seemed to die, no matter what.
Oriental poppies in any shade may look dramatic when in bloom, but don’t flower for long, flop unattractively and certainly don’t die back well. Somehow they still merit space in a border, but if they start thinking they can take over the world then they are OUT, although removing them is never as easy as one would like it to be. I have a basic fiery scarlet one, pale coral pink Papaver ‘Princess Victoria Louise’ and the more recent acquisition above, ‘Royal Wedding’. The blooms on this one seem particularly large, especially when the petals are splayed out like a frilly tutu – no doubt they will be gone by tomorrow!
I SUSPECT every gardener has for years now over and again heard the warnings about the most widely used pesticides in the United States, neonicotinoids—or neonics for short. In 2013, the American Bird Conservancy issued a report warning of their impact on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and especially the ripple effect their use was having on birds. The Conservancy has issued an updated report with a telling headline, “Neonicotinoid Insecticides failing to come to grips with a predictable environmental disaster.” So where are we now with limiting the use of these pesticides and what can we as citizens and gardeners do to help in the effort?