Cheddar Pinks at Cheddar Gorge

 

Cheddar Pink  - Dianthus gratianopolitanus

Having seen the Cheddar pinks recently at Bristol Botanic Gardens, I realised that when I  had visited the Gorge previously, it would have been either too early or too late to even catch a glimpse of the flowers.  Yesterday I did, and I reckon they will be even better in a week's time as there were still many in bud. 

 

Half along the eastern edge of the gorge, we happened to come across a ranger whom I asked about the Cheddar Pinks.  I think he was a little wary of pointing them out and he did caution me to take extreme care as they are at the top of the very highest cliffs.  They are just over the lip of the cliff up to about one metre down. Mr S was panicking, but I advanced prostrate, crawling on my belly to spread my weight, and also to avoid the strong wind being funnelled up the side of the cliffs. 

I had taken my smaller camera a Canon IXUS 12x, but it is probably better at the macro pictures that the other camera.  It was extremely windy at the very edge of the cliff and these are the best I had.

On the way down towards Jacob's ladder, the rock roses were just starting to open.

In the shady damper areas there was an abundance of Valerian just coming up to flower, it is the pale flowering native Valerian Officinalis that is coming out.  In a week or two the scent will be all around.  On some of the cliffs Centranthus ruber has gained a foothold and again both pink and white flowers were out.

Coming down Jacob's Ladder, we got into conversation with a young man and soon the Creole was flowing...the second Mauritian I have met in a matter of days.  This young man who is an accountant in 'defiance' of his family's medical heritage, was born in England to Mauritian parents, but going to and fro to visit Grandparents and family, had picked up Creole! 

                             

We walked back up to the car which was parked up at the top of the gorge, up the central road and as it was after five, the road was fairly quiet.   I did use my stick to wave down some cars that were being driven far too fast, certainly for the feral goats and Soay sheep who had their young with them and were crossing the road or even browsing the grass on the road side.

One gets more spectacular views of the Gorge from walking along the road, in either direction, far better  from either of the cliff top walks, but from those there are splendid views across the surrounding country, down onto Cheddar reservoir and beyond. It was amusing to see people driving down or up using their cameras to capture the changing cliff faces along the zig zagging road. If only they would get out of their car to enjoy the walk.

Gillyflowers

I have a friend Dasiy Debs who not only enjoys gardening and blogging but excels at the wonderful art of embroidery.  I have another friend Debbie, who loves visiting historic places and often sends me links to interesting information on face book.

Recently Daisy has posted a picture of her exquisite embroidery, straight from life, of a gillyflower.  This is the old fashioned name for what we now call pinks and carnations.  This reminded me of the time I spent as a volunteer in the new Elizabethan garden at Kenilworth Castle.  I remember the day they hoisted in the marble statue and set it up in the middle of the fountain.

Yesterday there was jousting at the Castle, and Mr S and I decided to have a walk over there.  We do this most times there is something on at the Castle and love to have a chat with the 'enactors' who are spending the time in the tents, cooking, and living, and putting on shows.  I usually take pictures and have posted about this from time to time.

This time I took a few pictures of some of the wild flowers in bloom along the way,  I thought the first clump of wild knapweed reminded of a carnation.  This clump was so good, that I shall return to gather a little seed as I think it would make a rather nice garden plant and it was being visited by bees too!

The Gilly flowers were doing their best after very heavy downpours of rain the previous day and in Kenilworth Castle Gardens captured some of the gillyflowers:

In a corner of one of the beds, the Sweet Williams were putting on a good Show.

In a Vase on Monday - Very Late

Yes its very late in the Season to be cutting Nasturtiums.  I am also late posting my Vase(s) on Monday one day late.

 I went out and cut the nasturtium flowers on Saturday as a hard frost was forecasted.  At the same time, I removed all the plants, picked some seeds to dry to give away and also a few for next year.  This is the little vase photographed today Tuesday.  I picked the freshly opened and in bud blooms, and I was wondering whether they would open..here they are all cheery.

Whilst I was pulling up the running stems from the nasturtium, I came across a shoot of my Alstroemeria, and fearing that too would just go to mush, picked the one stem that showed some promise of buds.  Here it is today....

When I found this stem I really felt so very happy.  I had moved part of the clump which I had to remove altogether from another spot, and replanted it last autumn, or was it early this spring, in my new 'yellow/red orange' corner and had feared that I had lost it forever.  I'm not sure of the name as I was given a very small piece of it when I first started the garden here.  Each year the clump had become more and more prolific.

I have also had my spirits raised as I have been looking back through my blog to find pictures of the vase I posted back in July 2014, but before joining this meme.  Here is the Alstroemeria growing in the garden.  At this time of the year, it is wonderful to look back over pictures from earlier in the year and previous years and realise that in just a few months time, plenty will be happening in the garden.

Another vase this week, which I hope will last some time is this one with three stems of Aeonium Zwartkop.  I had great success with my propagation late last year, and too many pots, so I just planted some in my 'stone strewn garden'.  It is so glum in my north facing lounge, that a flash was necessary.

This brings my contributions this week to an end, but at the same time I would like to mention 'Thanks giving'.  Its not a 'festival' we are yet to celebrate in the UK to any extent, and I shall be looking more into this.  We do adopt festivals from America, such as Trick or Treat, but then I have also read that we did have that here many years ago too.  Sunday Breakfast time saw Mr S make the breakfast, having first cleared the kitchen.  He had the Radio 4, and then the Service of Thanksgiving came on straight from America.  We continued with it on, whilst having Breakfast in a Sunny Conservatory.  It got us thinking. Neither of us go to church, but we do value many of the teachings, and with our culture, art, history and upbringing being grounded on the teachings of the Bible, we are quite open to many of its 'lessons'.  Instead of our conversation focusing on putting the World to Rights, fearing and worrying about what is happening in the World etc,  we turned to the things we had in our life to be grateful about.....and a little of this atmosphere of 'Thanks Giving' seems to have seeped into our lives since then.

I think Cathy and all her family will be having a great time celebrating her mother's big birthday.  She made up her vase from her holiday garden, which is just charming.  Its not too late to go and see what see and others have posted.

Late Summer Garden

 We've been sitting in the Gazebo at the end of garden, with cool drinks.  Under the large conifer it is about the coolest place there is.  In a pot theHydrangea Paniculata Vanille Fraise has excelled itself.  I think I shall have to put in some stakes to help take the weight of the large inflorescences.

I bought this plant about three years ago.  I do keep some plants in pots, planting them into larger pots each year, and moving  them around the garden.

Up against the conservatory this Clematis Viticella Purpurea Plena..the name says it all:  purple full flowered clematis is the best it has even been.  Each morning this week, as we breakfast, I have watched a large & fat light brown slug slither on the glass or eat round a leaf just close.  This morning, we were a little later, or maybe it knew I would be out with my slug catcher hat on!  And each day the squirrel manages to enter the net and get more pears!

The little chilli plant found it just too hot, so it is now on the table in the shade.

It was the leaves which attracted me to this Stachys 'Sharan Pink', and now it is looking really pretty in flower.  I think this will one which I shall try to propagate.

Close by another pink flower is flourishing in the heat: Achillea Lilac Beauty.  Again I bought just one plant last year, but will be sure to divide this up and have more repeats throughout the border.

One plant which I have had for many years, and which I think is so very useful as it can be planted at the front of the border, with pretty leaves from early spring, and now at this time sturdy but still delicate flower spikes, and later the seed heads covered with frosts seem to glow in low winter light.  Although Astilbes generally prefer damp conditions, here they are getting a good baking.  But we do have a heavy clay soil.  This dwarf chinese astilbe:  Astilbe Chinensis Pumila is one that I get down to admire...and cut to use with a mixture of other flowers and foliage for my posies indoors.

Another plant which ought to be in the soil, but which I potted up into a larger pot a few weeks ago, is doing well:  Leycesteria Formosa Golden Lantern.  I used to have a good clump of the green one in our last garden, and our bantums used to love the berries and Jet use to manage to fly up and bring branches down, whilst the plumper bantams used to peck at the berries.  They used to do this with the grapes too!  This and several other shrubs including Gerturde Jekyll has been used by leaf cutting bees.  A couple of weeks ago I watched a bee flying with a large piece, but did not manage to find where it went to!

The agapanthus, well the blue one is flowering, and the white one is still in tight bud

and under the purple acer I found the first of the cyclamen poking up, quite early this year...maybe some will be falling down the large cracks!

I normally keep my geraniums in pots, but this year put a few into the border.  My camera seems to cry shy of showing just how vivid these blooms are..I'm not sure of the name, which I have lost, of this one which I bought as a cutting a couple of years ago from one of the many 'Open Gardens' which we visit.

Bringing this picture up reminds of some of the plants which I shall be getting rid of, because they just do not perform and one of them is the day lily behind the geranium..it has never flowered in its three years there, and another on still with full sun, which is too much beloved of slugs!

This week's posy

Knitting the Maluka Shawl

Some time ago I thought it would be nice to knit something for a cousin.  I managed to catch up with this cousin through face book, or some such forum.  Since then we have communicated and I have gradually got to understand some of my early history, with aunts, uncles etc.  My father was the youngest in a large family, and when I was young there were only a couple of aunts and uncles left where we lived.  I feel a lovely connection through our common grand parents, and have enjoyed learning about her life.  She moved to Europe and our lives separated.  I had met her a couple of times at Aunty Suzanne's who lived opposite us in Mauritius, when I was about 8 years old, she was a very glamorous older cousin.  It was Aunty Suzanne who taught me to embroider.

Well I saw just the pattern on Ravelry.  This is a world wide forum and fantastic facility for knitters and other wool and stick crafts aka as crochet....I read all the useful comments from fellow knitters on how to tweak the pattern, which was written by Bea Schmidt.  I think it is a German Pattern and translated into English, which is where a little help in interpreting the pattern notes comes in helpful.  Usually I work from a chart, but in this instance wrote down the stitches line by line for the 12 row repeat lace border.

In my stash I had a lovely ball of pale pistachio green baby alpaca and silk yarn.  I have cherished this for years, having bought it at the same time as I was being mentored by my great friend and knitter Judith.  So when I was knitting this shawl I enjoyed many happy memories as well as thinking about my cousin.  The other item I knitted from this was for my friend Marie-Claire.  What a coincidence, both ladies from Mauritius!

I also managed to use one of the lovely stitch markers made for me by Sue to mark the middle of the scarf.

Washing and pinning out the shawl takes a little time, but I was listening to some lovely music at the time.  I use a couple of 'discarded' pilates mats from my Pilates Teacher Jane Bilsborrow, and remembered to do a few stretches during the process.  I like to take a picture of the blocked shawl, as it is easy to see where little adjustments have to be made.  A few after this photograph was taken made sure the scarf was symmetrical and even.

Picked this little posy in the morning, and thinking of my sister in Australia....