Glorious Weeds

Dandelions on a sunny day

There is always a week every spring in Britain when it's unseasonably warm.  As the barometer unexpectedly heads towards 20 degrees celsius layers are stripped off with gay abandon, pasty limbs are revealed for the first time for their annual Spring burn, which, although painful is always necessary for who needs sunscreen in April?!  Monday morning in such weather would not be complete without a comparison of sauteed body parts.  Personally I will be spending the summer attempting to blend in a regrettable v-shape on my chest.

Unfortunately, like all good things, it never lasts and we are fully back to coat weather despite it being mid-May.  Having been spoilt for a few days gardening in a very small pair of shorts (I have to take every opportunity to get a bit of colour on the legs, not that I endorse tanning but we are talking alabaster here), wrapping up in full coat against the gale force winds we had this weekend is not exactly enticing.  On Sunday I laid on the sofa for a full hour working up to going outside before I gave up and went and made a grilled cheese sandwich instead.

Luckily during those few brief moments of sunshine I did manage to get out and about with my camera.  A field just outside work caught my eye as it was full of weeds, dandelions to be precise.  Dandelions don't generally set my world alight, but these specimens had all gone to seed, which may not be deemed complimentary when applied to a man but definitely in my opinion improves a Dandelion, but then a whispy ball of seeds was always going to appeal to me.  Hundreds of fluffy globes were standing tall above the grass and I felt compelled to stop and capture this scene.  Its a very narrow road and I had to trot down it for a hundred metres or so with camera in hand.  I didn't half feel stupid, I could feel the eyes of passing drivers on me, wondering where on earth I was going.  In my commitment to the cause I also ducked under the fence so I could get down and dirty with the dandelions.  I can't say Iv ever noticed them on mass like this before and I must have got to them just before they completely ripened as the air was thick with them parachuting off to their destinations a few days later.

It got me thinking about Dandelions, an obvious subject for contemplation... not.  Such a commonplace weed doesn't half have a standout name.  After a little research I discovered the name literally means 'lions tooth' meaning the shape of the leaves, and not, as I had always hoped referring to the way the flower does resemble a lions mane.  Luckily in Alice in Wonderland they did make the dandelion a little lion, although what the tiger was meant to be I still don't know.  I was so into this train of thought I called the film 'Alice in Wonderlion' briefly.  Clearly that film had a massive impact on my childhood what with first the daffodils and now this!  Apparently they are completely edible but I think I will leave them to be stuffed into the local bunny rabbit, personally I like my salad to be a little less... garden weed shall we say.  I wonder does it make rabbits wee as well?­

Daffodils don't have to be yellow

Yes its the pot that just keeps on giving, the spring pot

I know daffodil season is well and truly over for this year, my mother’s narcissi, which have been glorious for weeks have finally curled and dried to shadows of their former selves.  I took a few photos here and there of some particular favourites and thought they were still worth sharing.

Now im more than happy to admit that I am a complete daffodil snob, which is somewhat ironic considering that all daffodils belong to the narcissus family and narcissus was in Greek mythology a hunter renowned for his beauty who fell in love with a reflection of himself and unable to tear himself away from such a vision, died.  I have also read that he was turned into a flower, although personally I wouldn’t have said that a daffodil was exactly an embodiment of an un-doubtably pretty but none-the-less strapping young man.   Personally, I would have chosen a flower with a far less sunny disposition, although maybe its just me who knows lots of miserable men.

Anyway despite sharing a root name with what can hardly be described as a complimentary affliction of being narcissistic, and being an absolute devil to spell, narcissi can be quite nice.  I say can be, because as I said before I am a snob.  I just hate you’re a-typical ‘King Alfred’ all yellow daffodil, oddly enough for exactly the same reason as why I appreciate a good field of Rapeseed.  They are just so god damned yellow, no subtlety, all ‘hello!’ and in your face.

There are plenty of daffodils and narcissi that I don’t find loathsome, and being a woman of taste the mother grew three this year that were actually rather nice.  Unfortunately I have no idea what any of them are but I imagine they are fairly common as she wouldn’t have gone anywhere more exotic than the garden centre to get them.

First up we have this rather lovely specimen with almost samon pink to apricot frontages to the petals, like a jazzy lining to a fancy jacket.  I mainly love the colour, although there are some ruffles in there which are always pleasing.  And no trumpet, I don’t think im too fond of trumpet.  They contrasted nicely against the purple of the muscari, I told you the colour scheme always works out!

Next a white variety with a vivid dark orange trumpet, yes a trumpet despite what I just said, even I can admire the vivid splash of colour on white and appreciate the gentle gradient down the inside towards the centre.

Lastly and my personal favourite of this trio is outrageously frilly and great value with several blooms on each stem.  The stripes of yellow and orange in the centre remind me of when you get a bit stabby with the spatula and accidentally pop the yolk of the fried egg you were cooking and it starts to bleed out.

I might look into getting a few exciting varieties for next Spring, I did pick up a leaflet from a daffodil bulb specialist at Chelsea last year but I tossed it away thinking I would never buy any, helpful.

If these don't remind you of eggs and Easter, nothing will

How not to plant sugar snap peas…

Picture A: a root nightmare                           Picture B: Haphazardly planted and abused pea plants

It was my mission this year to put myself through as much heartache and disappointment as possible by growing the majority of my vegetables from seed.  So far its all going to plan thanks to a combination of duff seeds, leggy seedlings as my dining room is over warm and finished off by rampant slugs.  However on a trip to my local garden centre a couple of months back for summer bulbs (more on this later, I bought quite a few) the mother ended up purchasing a tray of sugar snap pea seedlings.  In her words they just looked so ‘alive and growing’ so we cut ourselves some slack and bought them.  It felt wrong but what the heck.  Boy did they grow!

Far before I was ready there was a definite yellowing of the leaves and crammed in together like spectators at a music gig there was a pressing need to free them from their rooty prison and give them room to stretch their feet.  My veg patch was not remotely ready so I had to panic de-weed and dig a section to get my peas in.

Upon removal of the seedlings from their tray a rather significant problem became evident.  As I had left them in there a tad long, the abundance of root had interwoven nicely creating an impenetrable knot.  Im not even sure if your mean't to break apart the seedlings to plant them individually but this didn’t seem much of an option.  I couldn’t just stick six in together, the result would be a tangle far worse than even my morning hair and probably not prime pea producing conditions.

I hoped to be able to tease the roots apart but a gentle coaxing proved ineffective.  I tried slicing the root ball into segments but the knife wouldn’t cut through, although this was the knife that struggled to polish off slugs so this may have been down to my choice of implement.  I ended up just ripping them apart in a very brutal fashion into ones, twos and threes, hoping to leave at least some roots attached to the plants.  The mother who was watching on looked horrified but I always say ‘it will be fine they want to grow', I will likely lose a few but some should struggle on.  Generally im saying this as im mangling the roots of something; Im not known for gently potting up plants with love and tenderness.

Its been several weeks now and im pleased to report that not a single pea has given up its fight for life.  The bottom leaves still look yellow but there is new green growth and signs of gearing up to flower so its all good.  Finally a success!   

Photo of the week: Miss Bateman Clematis

Miss Bateman at Dusk

Just a quick photo I took a week or so ago.  Thought we would go for a simple visual delight today.  The first clematis bloom in our garden, we have a fair few, the mother’s rather fond you see.  It’s a Miss Bateman for interest.  Definitely out early because of a patch of nice weather we had.  Not so much now, I was so looking forward to going home, climbing into my wellies and having a little stomp about in my veg patch.  But not tonight Josephine, as Napolean once said, the heavens have opened.  And yes Im British and talking about the weather.  And do you know why we do that?  Yesterday it was sunny and t-shirt weather and today im wearing a raincoat with frizzy hair.  British weather lacks a little thing called consistency and is very unhelpful when I schedule in garden time.

(tit-bit for the day it was not until I went to post this that I noticed that spell checker had auto corrected ‘wellies’ into something far less appropriate for this blog…)