Six on Saturday

 Growth is slowing down remarkably but there are still treats to enjoy around the garden.  I love the early morning light catches the large cobwebs, and casts shadows as it filters through plants.  I'm taking cuttings and in my mind wondering whether I can move plants to better places. I'm expecting Jim who gathers together us SOSs will have some seasonal musings and delights from his garden.  We join up together there where we can see what others have been getting up to this week.

1. A few butterflies are flitting around the blooms and this Small Tortoishell Butterfly didn't want to go far from the many blooms on the Allium senescens ssp. montanum var. glaucum.

Small Tortoise Butterfly on Allium senescens ssp. montanum v. glaucum

If you know how small the heads are on garlic chives you can understand how small the butterfly is here, with its body much the same size as that of the two other insects here.  Are they bees?

Small Copper butterfly on Garlic Chives flower

2. I seem to be falling in love with grasses, and this Panicum virgatum 'Sangria'  now in the ground close to the Pittosporum Tom Thumb makes a good combination and I love the way it sways in the slightest breeze. The tips are just starting to redden, and from the description I am looking forward to its gradual reddening as the weather gets cooler.

3. So what did I manage not to resist at The Rare Plant Fair a couple of weeks ago?  For a start just as I was thinking I had finished with my purchases I caught a glimpse of the top of
Miscanthus nepalensis with the light shining through.  It was on The Special Plants Nursery stand and since I have never been disappointed by choices made by the owner Derri Watkins, I thought to give it a try.  Growing to 40 inches it is the perfect size for my small garden.  As it is a new plant by that I mean young, and it is not said to be hardy in the coldest winters, I have decided to over winter it and have moved it on to a larger pot, rather than plant it in the ground. It also goes under the name of Himalayan Fairy Grass, just how cute is that!

I also bought from that stall a label pen, and a Pelargonium which will make its debut another week.

4.I was pleased that another favourite grower Rob Potterton was there and enjoyed catching up with him. He had some delightful things and I came away with three lots of bulbs: Iris Alida, some very special Crocus heuffelianus 'Shock Wave', and Crocus speciosus 'Oxonian'.  The special crocus and the Iris are now planted up in half pans, and the 'Oxonian'  autumn flowering crocus  are now in the ground.  The garden is really full and to get them in meant digging up a tired clump of Origanum Bristol Cross, but taking several nicely rooted bits from the edge to grow on in the quickly emptying veggie area.  

Crocus speciosus 'Oxonian' planted

We have a troupe of young blackbirds, and I am hoping this covering of twigs will entice them to cultivate the ground elsewhere! The soil had already been spread across the gravel path before I put these precautions in place.

5. I've managed to empty out two pots in which shrubs have been growing for some time.  Just arranging or rearranging plants around the garden is one of my favourite seasonal gardening activities.  The Sorbaria Sem is finally released into the garden and the Tree Peony too has found its spot. Underneath the shrubs many of the Cyclamen hederifolium are in flower.

Cyclamen hederifolium

6.  Hylotelephium formerly called  Sedum erythrostictum ‘Frosty Morn’ has been an asset to the garden for several weeks. Its creamy white edges on light green leaves are topped by it large pinky white flowers.  Its colour was not dulled nor turned brown even with the rain and cold.  During this warm and sunny week it is another favourite with the butterflies and bees.

'Frosty Morn'

I hope that the weather will continue to give me time to go various other gardening tasks this coming week.

Six on Saturday - 4 November 2023

We seem to have had several bouts of high winds and far too much rain.  Storm Ciarán may have come over what I know is that water is running off fields, over roads and finding the fastest downslope passage. Thankfully all the rain that fell has been absorbed in the garden.  I am already using any slight lull to go out and cut things back. We shall no doubt have a weather roundup as we join Jim who leads this weekly get together, and also hear from our friends abroad.

1. Wednesday saw some lovely sunshine, and I just had to get out into the garden.  The storm was expected to arrive later in the day, so I decided to do some gentle pruning of the roses to help prevent too much wind rock.  Although most of the new 'hardy chrysanthemum' shown previously have finished flowering, have been trimmed, and lifted for the winter,  Chrysanthemum Hillside Apricot is only just coming to its crescendo. Half of it remains here. But it is such a good one and went through last winter, than I am leaving this one in the ground.

Chrysanthemum Hillside Apricot

On Thursday 'in the eye of the storm', I picked flowers from this Chrysanthemum that is already 'half cut back' to enable the work on the seating circle.  I had four bunches, one to a neighbour and three others to friends at book club luncheon. 

2.  There were lots of different flying insects on the blooms, and I wonder whether this is the last sip of nectar for this Red Admiral. This one was photographed on 1st November 2023. I still have many insects buzzing, which means that shrubs such as the large Salvia Amistad haven't yet been trimmed back.  The big bumble bees go for these Chrysanthemums and the small ones go on to the Salvias.

3. Yes, the seating circle is now complete. I've been moving soil back around and wonder whether the snowdrops will have survived, hopefully they were safe several inches below the surface.  The furniture is now put back and there are no hazards with chair legs sinking into the gravel.

4. The green bin eventually got emptied six days late, but being a fortnightly collection, I was pleased to have the bin for a good week, before it was due to go back out this Wednesday, and already it is half full  Down the narrow side alley, where I stand the bin, out of sight of any of our house windows, grows some ivy, various pots and some bricks are also stacked there.  Look what was hiding in the holes!  Once despatched, the bricks were returned and they will be inspected regularly from now on. Why do I keep these assortments of bricks?  

5. Its a long story, maybe for another day, but I happen to end up with two Ginkgo biloba 'Mariken'.  This one not ordered is growing in the garden, and is turning a beautiful shade of yellow.  I decided to use a silver marker which I already had on this slate label, and will keep an eye to see how long it lasts.

6. There is no need for an outside thermometer to tell me whether or not there has been an overnight frost. I just look over to the far side of the gravel garden where a nasturtium came up from seed left from the previous years' plants.

You may also like to visit my post 'Tree Appreciation Tuesday' post, and by all means do join in whether regularly or merely from time to time. 

Day on the Lassithi Plateau

Travelling up through the mountains by coach  we had views of the hills cloaked in their 'springtime' evergreen shrubs and I could pick out the dry river beds by the ribbons of oleanders with their pink blooms.  We stopped at a view point and although early in the day the heat haze had started to form.

Ruins of threshing floors and derelict windmills for grinding the corn  signaled that we were going through a pass.  These are ideal spots where chaff would be blown away on the stiff breezes, which also turned the sails.

This is just one of the many types of Phlomis growing on Crete.


We started our walk at the edge of Lassithi Plateau. Just looking at the handful of windmills with full sails left me with a sad feeling that all the other windpump, and it is reckoned there were ten thousand, are now defunct.  Instead diesel powered pumps bring up water.  It is relatively cool at this higher altitude.  The plateau gets covered with snow during the winter.  With its very fertile soil, its no surprise to hear that  this area has been farmed for centuries, since Neolithic times.

Even with strong sun the fields were being irrigated with a fine mist which seemed to evaporate before it could hit the ground.  I've been thinking about this, and maybe it was to keep the recently sown crops cool enough.

This butterfly probably a speckled wood stopped long enough for me to 'capture' it.  All around there were birds.  Hopefully I shall receive a list from Dee Doody of the ones we saw.  We watched a very rare bird of prey...but I did not have my note book on me!!

After walking across the plateau, and through the village of  Psychro, we started our walk uphill towards the Dhiktean Cave.  These days I seem to get confused, unless I can pinpoint places.  I found the different spellings and names particularly difficult:  Psychro Caves, Dhiktean, Dikteon...how many more names/spellings can there be for the Cave where according to Greek Legend Zeus was born? 

 I had to keep up with the party, but I was tempted on several occasions to hold back to enjoy the wild plants and flowers along the path.

Above the mouth of the cave, large fig trees grew from cracks in the limestone rocks.

As you descend into the cave, there are interesting formations, along the walls, as well as stalactites and stalagmites.

Its the lovely blooms that caught my eye.  The first picture here us Centaurea raphanina ssp raphanina, an endemic of Crete.  Its stemless and has the most intricate bloom.

Orchids dotted the sparse vegetation along the path.

Here a very hairy yellow flowered plant tried to muscle in on a centaurea

The most striking plant of this hillside was one whose leaves alone could hold my interest for a very long time. Here they are fresh and completely unfurled.  Its bloom still at the tight bud stage.  I saw several examples of Drcunculus vulgaris: the voodoo lily.

This plant's leaves had started to curl and dry, but now the flower is fully open.  

We drove through some of the very pretty villages, where cherries were starting to ripen, and walnut trees had only just come into leaf.  

On the way back we stopped at Krasi.  What an enchanting place.  Here stands the oldest and largest plane trees in Crete, said to be around two thousand years old.  

I could feel its energy, which I felt drawn to.  Its one of the finest trees I have been close to.  It felt full of life and long may it live.  Just across the street are the village springs where water clear and cool seeps from the mountain.

We strolled along the lanes, and here at the front of this Taverna my eye was drawn by the rose tree.

Most of the forecourts were places to display favourite plants.

Here a settee was placed on the road...so welcoming....is that a hand woven rug?

Dare I knock...but I have no Greek...What would I say?  But then I see a very old lady all on her own, sitting in her garden in the shade, and I just smile, I receive a  smile and then a wave, I wave back, and she smiles some more.  We have said all that was required...she an I.

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.

Butterflies are emerging less that five days after the snows have melted

Sitting down in the conservatory yesterday, having just finished our lunch, we had a few moments of the sweetest pleasure: we watched butterflies on the wing.  A couple of large yellow butterflies were slowly flying in the garden around the edge of the densely leaved evergreen Holm oak which grows on the other side of our garden wall.  They are so distinctive with their shape and colour, and early flights.

I have made the link to Butterfly Conservation .The male  brimstones  had just emerged from hybernation.  They seemed sometimes almost suspended in the air and then they suddenly darted off.  For perhaps two minutes we were captivated.  They are a real harbinger of Spring, and I read that the word butterfly may well owe its origin to the buttery colour of the Brimstone, and then Brimstone is also the name for sulphur which is yellow.  Yellow butterflies certainly stand out against the green and silver leaf canopy.

This siting is about five weeks earlier than the last time in  mid April 2013 when I last wrote about Pulmanarias in the my old garden, when I made a note about first seeing Brimstone butterflies.