A very special honeysuckle!

Mention honeysuckle to anyone and the immediate image that forms in our minds is the scented clambering climber. Mention honeysuckle to gardeners and they will also think of the winter flowering scented shrubs such as Lonicera purpusii or Lonicera frangantissima.

But just look at this beauty growing in our back garden. Delicately scented pink flowers that resemble miniature lilac blooms on a scraggy untidy growing shrub. It is in flower now in May and will have red berries shining along its stems in the autumn where its flowers are now.

We have been enjoying its colour and scent each spring for the last 10 years and totally forgotten its name. We decided this year to find out what it was. The answer was to take a few photos along to our Shropshire Hardy Plant and ask Joe our plant guru. I thought it was a Lonicera (honeysuckle), Jude the Undergardener thought it was a Syringa (lilac) and other Hardy Plant friends thought it was a Daphne.

Joe had a close look and came up with the ID after just a few seconds thought. Lonicera rupicola var. syringantha, a honeysuckle with flowers like a lilac. It grows untidily to about 7 or 8 feet so ours is well on its way to being fully grown. Several hardy planters have asked for cuttings which we need to take in June, so it will be a productive shrub this year.

Enjoy my gallery of photos of this special shrub and imagine its scent. Just click on any pic to get started.

Primroses – more unsung heroes of the spring garden

Following on from my posts about celandines and pulmonarias I am now urging us all to take more notice of primroses and all their spring-flowering cousins with which we can grace our spring borders.

The most beautiful of all are our natives, the Wild Primrose, the Oxlip and the Cowslip. Plant these in your garden and if they like you they will gently spread and wherever they ends up they will never look out-of-place. The primrose will flower earliest of the pair but the cowslips and oxlips will not be far behind. We have clumps of our natives throughout our garden and look forward with great expectations each spring.

 

There are so many cultivated relatives of these natives and relatives of plants from around the world that you can have so many different forms and colours. If you are lucky you will find that some cross with the natives and produce new colour strains.

On a recent visit to the RHS garden up in Yorkshire, Harlow Car, we found many different ones and were amazed in particular by the miniature jewels in the alpine house and in the alpine features around it. My next post will feature these.

Pulmonarias – unsung heroes of the spring garden.

Some plants become taken for granted and fail to be fully appreciated. I recently posted about celandines and got lots of favourable comments, so today I shall feature the wonderful pulmonarias with their subtle flowers and unusual foliage.

Here is the classic pulmonaria seen in so many British gardens with flowers in both pink and blue on the same plant and bristled leaves splodged with silver. We grow them in almost every border in our patch but they really prefer a little shade.

The best way to sing the praises of pulmonarias and hopefully encourage a few more gardeners to go out and get some for their own gardens is to put together a little gallery of photos of our plants to show their subtle beauty.

Just click on a photo and follow the journey to see if you are convinced.

The Architectural Heritage of Shrewsbury – Shuts and Passages

Shrewsbury is well known for the variety of its architecture and fine examples can be found of many eras and styles within the loop of the River Severn in which the town lies. With locals and visitors alike there is a certain affection for the shuts and passages that sneak between them.

They give you sneak previews of streets you have not yet found, they let you take short cuts, smokers use them to escape the wind when they want to light a match, lovers use them for secret cuddles, and sadly the homeless have to use them for shelter from the cold wind that howls around the tall buildings of Shrewsbury. There shouldn’t be homeless anywhere in the world and in so-called civilised countries like ours there should be none. Sadly homelessness is on the increase. At least our county town has some shelter in the shuts and passages.

We took a wander around the centre of town and took photos of these little alleyways, the good and the bad, the attractive and the ugly. Visiting on the day that the recycling bins were due for collection spoilt many a photo opportunity, but I suppose this juxtaposition of the heritage and beauty from the town’s past should be presented alongside the reality of today’s world. We need everything recycled that can possibly be recycled after all.

This beautiful gate marked the entrance to one of the few private alleyways.

Enjoy a peak into a variety of our shuts and passages.

 

York – the Minster

Virtually everyone who visits York has to visit the Minster, and so did we.

I was luckier than most visitors as I had two guides. My guide to the exterior was Robin who impressed with his knowledge of all things architectural.

Once inside I relied on Jude better known in my blog as the Undergardener. She was not up to the standard of the Robin however.

To share our visit simply click on a photo and enjoy my gallery. The pictures do not illustrate all the restoration and development work that is necessary to ensure that the Minster continues to dominate the York skyline for centuries to come.  So before the gallery is a photo of what the Minster looks like from the front with the ever-present construction machinery.

A Bouquet for April

At last spring has arrived in the garden and taken it by storm. Buds are bursting, birds are nesting and bees buzzing searching the blooms.

Any bouquet for April will have to embrace flowering bulbs.

      

 

And how about adding a few bursting buds of trees and shrubs? Our miniature chestnut, the sweetly scented daphne flowers and the froth of snow-white amelanchier flowers.

 

All around the garden fresh fruit blossom promise beautifully scented and delicious, delicate flavours. The pinks of apple blossom and whites of plums. Oh so tasty!

 

The insects are appreciating these new signs of life too, in particular the  bees and  butterflies. This little bee knows that there is something good awaiting him inside the tulip once it opens. He is just a centimetre or so long and coloured a rich gingery orange.

 

I shall finish off by inviting you to enjoy a little gallery of garden delights taken on the last day of April.

Euphorbia fireworks.

Dusky pink primula hides in arum and stipa leaves.

Droplets of Ribes spesiosum.

Bog garden foliage.

Tiny cherry tree and whispy grass,

Anemone de caen

Copper sculpture with copper leaved phormium.

Kingcups on the dge of the wildlife pond.

Ornamental rhubarb and Bistort leaves.

Mini-chestnut.

Growing up! Making a green roof.

We have created a new feature on our allotment this week – a green roof. We thought we would try to make up for the area of ground taken up by the footprint of our shed by making a garden on its roof. We have spent months at the planning stage, working out how to strengthen the roof, how to make sure we  could still collect rain water run-off to fill our butts and choosing plants that would look good and support wildlife. We would like the roof to entice more beneficial insects , pollinators and natural pest controllers to visit our plot. Spiders, beetles, hoverflies will also be welcomed as our little garden helpers and of course we want to attract butterflies too just to delight in watching them.

After strengthening the structure of the shed by building an internal framework of 2 x 2 inch lengths of wood, we added a second layer of roofing felt. Next we fitted the outside frame out of 6 inch deep feather edge and inside this stapled down a double layer of geo-textile membrane. We hope the membrane will allow rainwater to pass through it after permeating through the compost. The rainwater will then be caught in the guttering and can run into the butts.

 

A structure of 2 x 2 inch lengths of wood was used to divide up the surface.

 

We next added the first layer of special compost to a depth of about an inch. This is a lightweight compost to which we added perlite to a ratio of 1 to 3 perlite to compost. Chicken wire was then laid over this first layer of compost and then a second one inch layer of our compost/perlite mixture was added. The wire should help hold the compost in place in times of heavy rain and we hope it will also give something for the roots to grow through and grip onto.

 

 

Finally the planting. Delicate alpines in some sections and mixed sedum and sempervivum in others. We added a driftwood feature for interest.

 

What we hope we have created is a little meadow in the air, a miniature garden that takes up no growing space that could otherwise be used for crop production. We will have the added benefit of an increase in insulation, giving us a cooler shed in the summer and a warmer space in the winter.

So now we are keeping our fingers crossed, hoping that we do not have any heavy downpours before the plants get their roots down, and hoping that Blackbirds do not find a way in. They have a habit of uprooting young plants in the hope of finding a tasty morsel.

I shall keep you informed of progress.