Monday 9 April 2018

In a Vase on Monday - Two plus one

Just three elements in the vase today:  two are from the garden and one is from the wild.  From the garden some periwinkle for their contrasting colour and form, and just two stems of Mahonia aquifolium.  These flowers are already attracting early pollinators such as bees and the queen bumble bees, with their nectar a welcome early spring pickmeup for the creatures coming out of hybernation.  

The shrub is large and raggedy but with its shiny evergreen leaves with large red blotches it had been the focal point of this garden during the dull wet days of winter and spring.  Whether it still has garden room once other shrubs grow that is the great question only time will tell.

From a different range of lovely bird song in Cornwall which included gulls...we are back to more lovely bird song here in the garden.  I lingered yesterday early evening, and even this morning as I gathered these in the rain, the dunnock, robin and many other birds' song was the nicest reminder that nature will hopefully carry on despite the ups and downs of the season. Hence the little prop of my pottery bird which has a lovely toned whistle.


The other element is yellow archangel.  I admired this in my cousin's little arrangement by her front door.  Of course the leaves are rather interesting, and the plant seemed familiar to me.  I tentatively named the plant archangel and straight away wondered from what recess of mind this came from.  I wasn't far wrong..Lamiastrum galeobdolon argentatum or yellow archangel is now classified as a non native which is listed as a Schedule 9 species...use the link to read more about that.  I used to grow this many years ago on a dry sunny bank and I don't remember it being any trouble.


I have read that it seeds readily and that ants move them to their nests and hence the plant can pop up far away, and since it also creeps therefore if I were to plant this I shall have to watch it very carefully.  As we walked down the lane to the Cove in Cornwall, the verges were yellow with primroses and patches of flowering yellow archangel.

I have been amazed by the large amount of primroses this year.  There are far more compared to previous years.  Primroses are the foodplant of the caterpillars of the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly so hopefully with many more plants around this will bode well for this butterfly, and I shall be on the look out for one.

I noticed on our last walk along the lanes in Somerset last week, that the other wild Lamium the Red Dead Nettle or Sweet Archangel is already in flower.  It was the loud buzzing of a Queen Bumblebee that drew my gaze to this pretty wild flower growing on the road verge.  I've always rather liked lamiums, so maybe a few of the more choice ones will find their way in the garden.

Cathy who hosts this meme has a 'sweet little angel' posing on her prop with of course some lovely flowers.  Do go and look and maybe also join in either this week or some other with this meme.

19 comments:

  1. Really enjoyed reading this post, Noelle, which was about more than just your vase. The birds seem to sing a different tune at this time of year, don't they, and for more hours in the day. I had heard that this lamium is invasive, particularly in Scotland; here I waged war on it in my woodland and keep it contained in just one part - it pulled out easily because it has shallow roots but spreads by runners. The different elents of your vase work well togther and your bird whistle links it your earlier thoughts. Thanks for sharing today. Good to hear the bees about, isn't it?

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    1. Birdsong itself is a fascinating topic...parts of the Birds's brains grow in the spring and the song changes ready for the territory and mating games. The autumn song is altogether different. We buy honey and use about a jar a fortnight so I hope all the Somerset Bees have a successful year. Too much rain is very bad for them.

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  2. Oh the vase is wonderful and I love that your primroses feed caterpillars that will later be butterflies....we are just finally slowly warming from another blast of winter.

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    1. Thanks Donna...this is a new garden, which is still being planned. For now few elements but a bit of a story to prop them up. Your summer will come and then you will thoroughly enjoy the huge surge in growth.

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  3. That's one of my favorite color combinations, Noelle. That Lamium is also regarded as invasive here, although you can still find it for sale in garden centers occasionally. I planted it once in my former garden but it didn't spread there. We probably didn't give it the water in needs to thrive - drought has its purposes, I suppose!

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    1. I shall just have to make sure that if it is flourishing...I really kill it off.

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  4. What a sweet arrangement full of untamed beauty. Thank you for including information about invasive species and butterfly habit. I love learning those things. --Terri, tssoutherngarden.com

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    1. Each area has specific issues and it is important to keep these in mind. We gain a lot of our local Wildlife Group, through lectures and field trips. We have so many local botanists and entomologists both professional and amateur, all wanting to share their knowledge. It is well worth getting in tough with groups such as these to further knowledge and help out too.

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  5. Nice arrangement. The yellow archangel is attractive--too bad it is aggressive--and I adore the little ceramic bird.

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  6. A very bee-friendly and pretty bunch! :) I like Lamiums too, but do consider it a weed as it spreads all over the garden. I would never plant it on purpose! However, in my dry poor soil it is easy to pull out. Mahonia is also a weed here and there are several self set shrubs around the garden, all just about to open and attract the bees. :)

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    1. Thank Cathy...sometimes I just feel that a little boost for the wild life requires some of these less than choice plants. I shall gradually find preferable additions, and remove any which prove to be thugs. Its all about balance.

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  7. We are certainly having ups and downs this season but I am assured that it will be improving next week! I've seen may primroses too, it's lovely to spot them while driving around. It's good to know that you have flowers for your pollinators. The mahonia looks lovely, does it have scent too?

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    1. The Mahonia has a fantastic scent...in fact the arrangement was a little too much for me, and it is now on the garden table, from where I can admire it both from the kitchen and the conservatory. I've started to react quite strongly to strong scents in an enclosed space..but this has deterred me from making up posies etc.
      Let me know if you would like a plant.

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  8. Lovely vase and story,Primroses and Archangel sounds like a wonderful combination and butterflies to boot. I've been working on butterfly plants in my garden. I think people are getting overexcited about invasives. I could barely grow the Archangel in my garden,but other places it thrived. We called it Aluminum Foil plant.

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    1. I laughed out loud when I read your comment: Aluminium foil plant, and your previous comment about getting overexcited about invasives...I thought that wraps it up. I quite agree with you. If invasives crowd out and are threatening to ovewhelm local rarerities, yes there is a problem, but in the garden setting I think it is OK too, in the main. Thanks for bringing this up.

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  9. Mahonia is a backbone of the winter garden here in the American Pacific Northwest too. It provides food for hummingbirds and great color in the middle of winter. I have a Lamium orvala silva, that gets very tall and clumps, with much bigger leaves than the usual creeping invasive ones. The one we call deadnettle with its purple flowers is pretty and apparently edible, but I pull it as a weed. Love your little bird whistle!

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    1. So interesting to hear that this is a favoured nectar source for hummingbirds.

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  10. I agree the primroses are exceptional this year. I have two types of ornamental dead nettle in the garden, I do like them, as do the bees. The yellow one does send out runners in all directions, I just pull some of them up as I weed the garden.

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  11. Aaaaaaagh - that lamium is one of the banes of my life Noelle but then I have damp shade. It was reading one of Margery Fish's books that convinced me that it was a must have. Still it's most pretty when in flower and looks good with the periwinkle in your vase.

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