Night-blooming flowers

I was thinking about night (and evening) flowers today. A number of plants have flowers that open up in the evening, or are most fragrant in the evening. Usually, they're pollinated by night-flying moths or beetles or in warm tropical regions, bats.

A common denominator is fragrance; moths have a keen sense of smell through their feathery antennae, so flowers that open in the evening often have agreeable scents.

Think about evening primrose, magnolias, four-a-clocks, gardenias, moonflowers, tuberoses, fringetree, and a host of others. They all are fragrant, and luminous in the evening. A lovely book, The Evening Garden: Flowers and Fragrance from Dusk till Dawn by Peter Loewer is a great reference. It was republished by Timber Press in 2002, so copies are still available. It's an excellent guide to creating an evening garden.

A Quiet House.

The lad with the wonky arm had actually broken it in 2 places. His mum said that even at the hospital everyone was amazed at how calm he was. He's back in school with an open plaster cast on it and is as full of beans as ever. I didn't dare take a chance on letting out to play so he was confined to quarters with a friend to keep him company. As it was the pair of them were running around the library making paper aeroplanes. Fortunately for me everything was done correctly at school and the parents are not demanding to know why 'I let this child's arm get broken'. There are some people who always feel that somebody must be to blame for everything that happens and demand a full enquiry into every mishap that occurs. It's been a fairly relaxed day at school. The role play corner in my classroom is 'a campsite' with a tent made from some material thrown over 2 bits of play furniture. When it falls down I simply tell them that part of camping is learning how to put your tent up when it falls down. I've put baby blankets and pillows inside and it's been so funny to see children all tucked up in the tent ready to go to sleep. Another very popular activity this week is the tuf spot ,(a builders' tray) filled with dry compost and diggers etc. I don't think the cleaners are all that pleased with the mess on the floor even after the children have swept up but we're planting lots of seeds at the moment and it seemed to be an appropriate activity.

When I went to my car this evening I found this cherry blossom on the sun roof on a reflection of the clouds.

A quick stroll around the garden to see the progress of the spring flowers. The aubretia is flowering almost the whole way around its formal circle.

I like the colour contrast between the ajuga and the London Pride.

The house is quiet as Romas is down in Bude again and as well as whole day PPA tomorrow we've got the long Bank Holiday weekend to look forward to. I hoping for good weather on Monday which will bring everybody out for the carboot sale.

Creating a bog garden

We really hadn't planned on a small bog garden, but happened on a display of carnivorous plants at a local plant festival. The keen young proprietor had many of our native pitcher plants, sundews and some Venus fly traps, along with some Australian insectivorous species. Most had been propagated by tissue culture, he said, and my gardening companion was entranced (he knows all about our native bog plants from an ecological point of view).

He set to work digging a hole.

Native bogs and savannah habitats are a wonderful aspect of the Southeastern U.S. When we lived in SE Georgia, the few remaining bogs were (and are) meccas for plant lovers. Here in South Carolina, we have the same pine savannah bogs, but also mountain cataract bogs,
supporting a range of rare species.

Once widespread, coastal plain pitcher plant bogs have declined because of drainage, development, agriculture, etc. Wetland protection has helped some, but bogs are still rare and threatened here in the U.S., as well as elsewhere in the world.

The final (but still initial) plantings

This is how we started.

So, with encouragement from the native plant gardener (me), we acquired 2 trumpet pitcher plants (Sarracenia flava), a mountain pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea var. montana), and a Venus fly trap (Dionaea muscipula), native to the coastal plain in only a few sites in North and South Carolina.


I had assured him that creating a small bog wasn't hard (it basically involves some sort of liner, builder's sand, and peat, along with a source of abundant and mineral-poor water).

He was quite pleased.


Our gardening assistant provided moral support, as always.

Rain Sets In.

The weather has reversed itself today, dry during the day but turning to a soft rain by the time I got home. A couple of my class were away today and I have a horrible feeling the tummy bug is appearing again. I had to send for one of my children's mum as I suspected he had broken his arm! He'd fallen heavily on his wrist in the playground, he could still move his fingers but was in some pain and suffering from shock and most tellingly that arm was a different shape to the other. We haven't heard yet how he is yet.

It was too grey to take pictures today so here are some cheery violas in the hanging basket from the other day.

Yesterday's free range pigs were very contented and this little chap was quite happy to demonstrate to the children how pigs like their tummies scratched. The whole place was the essence of glorious Devon countryside with animals being kept in optimum conditions.

I've just been watching Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk through Yorkshire and Cumbria. It's a breathtakingly beautiful programme and will be available on BBCiplayer for the next week. Well worth looking at if you like dales and moorland.

Garlic, spinach, mustard greens, and lettuce

Garlic, radish, potatoes, snap peas, and a couple of hay bales ready to plant

Abundant rain this winter and spring (hooray!), along with some very warm days over the last week, has the vegetable garden growing rapidly.

I might actually be able to try cooking some fresh favas (broad beans) this year. There are a few pods on the small number of plants that overwintered.

These plants came from seed sown in early February --it'll be interesting to see if they're able to set any fruits before our hot weather sets in. Fall planting followed by overwintering is usually the best method in our climate, but this year's cold winter zapped that!

Right now, there are more greens than we can eat directly -- the mustards, Asian greens, and older salad mix will become stir-fries; younger lettuces, spinach, purple mustard, arugula, and green onions, we'll eat fresh.

The garlic and onions are looking very promising, and the potato foliage looks great. I'll be planting squash and beans in the next couple of days, if I can squeeze it in -- otherwise, this weekend.

The transplanted tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers look good, although I still need to put the final transplants in their hay bale 'experiment.'

We've had several excellent rounds of spinach from this container (a good amount each time, actually) - yum.

This was Renee's Garden Oriental Giant Spinach - totally fabulous, and by far the most productive spinach that I've grown.

Little Comfort Farm.

We were so lucky with the weather today. After yesterday's downpours we were rather worried about our trip to Little Comfort and West Hill Farms at West Down. We went prepared for rain but had the most wonderful sunny but breezy day.


The farms are 2 small organic farms with dairy cattle, free range hens, pigs and sheep.

The children got to feed the hens and collect eggs. One little girl in my group was terrified of the hens and clung to me in terror every time a hen got anywhere near us.

We had a lovely walk down the hill between the 2 farms. This little lad decided to take up a stunt man career and tipped himself head over heels at least 6 times before I decided that either he or his glasses were in danger of getting damaged and made him walk for a while holding my hands. Most of us agreed that the tractor trailer rides were the best part of the day.

Spring wildflowers

Here are a few images from the native plant collections at the Botanical Gardens of Asheville.

An tough and adaptable wildflower, Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginicum) thrives in conditions from dry dappled sunlight to damper edges; some plants (from northern populations) are much more upright than the prostrate rosettes common in southern populations. These plants, growing in relatively high rich soil, look robust.


Firepink (Silene virginica) must be challenging to move - I seldom see it for sale as a tranplant. Otherwise, it would be more common as a garden plant!


And Iris cristata always is lovely.

Weather Warning.

The morning started with a severe weather warning for heavy rain and that's exactly what we got- torrential rain. By midday it had almost stopped and once again the late afternoon enjoyed bright sunshine.

The neatly squared off hedges are all sprouting patches of bright green and soon the whole countryside will be green again. A blue haze is appearing on the verge at the right hand side of this hill. In a week it will be covered with bluebells. Even though you are not supposed to I always stop and pick bunches of bluebells from here because they look so lovely in the kitchen.

As well as the bluebells there are these little dog violets. I let them grow in my scree garden until I realised they were mostly leaves and spreading rapidly. Now I weed them out.

Back at school this telegraph pole in the playground is softened by clematis flowers.

Linas went back to Plymouth today but hopes to return this weekend for an airsoft game. Romas is desperately trying to work out how to get by train/coach to next weekend's muster near Wareham. So far it looks to be 5-6 hrs on the train and no way of getting back home on Bank Holiday Monday evening. It's not so far but the journey involves 3 trains each way.

More spring wildflowers

A weekend in the mountains of North Carolina rewinds spring. As we climb up in elevation (from about 1000 ft. in Clemson, South Carolina to the 3000 ft. + mountains surrounding Asheville (about 2000 ft.), the leaves in the forest become smaller, the catkins on the oaks and hickories (achoo!) are still in bloom, and it's peak spring wildflower season again.

The Botanical Gardens of Asheville, next to the UNC-Asheville campus, has been a favorite place of ours to visit for the last 15 years. A native plant garden established along a beautiful stream on a sloping, boulder-rich site over 50 years ago, it's a wonderful place to see an abundance of native plants -- wildflowers, shrubs, and trees both in natural and garden settings.

Now run as an independent non-profit, it seems to be doing well. We only joined last year, when we came on an afternoon that the Botanical Center was open, but we've had such pleasure in visiting over the years, just being a basic member is hardly compensation.

The only drawback is that it isn't dog-friendly, much to Mocha's disappointment. But the creekside setting and heavy use makes dogs a liability that's understandable.

I'll have some photos to add tomorrow -- our camera download cables are at home, oh well.

Shirts Done.

Completed the 2 shirts for Romas, after an emergency dash to town to get some more white sewing thread, and also made one of the wardrobe curtains. I'm not a natural seamstress so I was quite pleased with myself. The other curtain will have to be washed first before I remake it with the new muslin. On the way to town a large hare ran ahead of the car for a while before turning into a field. Linas wasn't quite quick enough with the camera even though the hare stopped and looked at us for a moment.

It is so good to see the trees start to turn green. Compare this to the same tree last Sunday, not a leaf in sight.

We had some very heavy rain showers and I managed to catch that beautiful yellow light that sometimes happens just before the deluge.

My next door neighbour has been re-shaping his lake. He's got rid of the wet ground where the moorhens nested and made the banks much steeper. Instead he's made a small island which will keep the nests safe from marauding cats. Bad cats ! On the good side, one of my gang left a large (dead) rat on the doorstep this morning. Yuk!

New Shirts For Romas.

Lots of heavy showers today so I've got the sewing machine out and have almost completed two shirts for Romas to wear for the Sealed Knot. When those are done I've got the fabric for sorting out our wardrobe curtains. I might even make some shopping bags. I saw some nice ones yesterday but I wouldn't pay over £10 for them.

Meanwhile here are some more interesting architectural views from yesterday.

Yet another shopping mall, not so interesting inside, more like a standard high street mall.

I loved these giant stone balls.

An original regency shopping arcade, look at those lovely windows above the shops. I was politely told that I wasn't allowed to take photos so I apologised and left.

This ruined church sits in a small park, not far from the canal.

Down by the canal it's a scene of urban ugliness which reminded me a bit of my days running around Stepney, riding horses round building sites and even swimming (fully clothed) in the canals). While I was having my coffee & cake the 2 ladies next to me were talking about the shopping centre at Canary Wharf in Docklands, (that's the big one with the pyramid on top) and I felt like butting into their conversation and telling them how I rode horses round those streets when all the redevelopment was going on.

A Day In Bristol.

It was a good day and a not-so-good day yesterday. First the not-so-good. When the consultant looked at my tooth he said it was too far gone for a root filling and I had to have the tooth pulled out. He wouldn't say if the tooth might have been saved if I had had the treatment a year ago so I will always wonder. I've have toothache in that area for some years but each time the x-rays have shown nothing and the dentist has said the pain was due to my persistent sinus infection. So probably the tooth was decaying away for all that time. The consultant was very kind and as I only have a problem with drills the extraction was fine. He had to warn me of all the possible problems such as having to drill out the jaw bone, or there being a hole between the root bed and the sinus but luckily none of these occured and it was all very straight forward.
I went up by train and the first stage to Exeter was so beautiful. The early morning sun was burning the mist off the water meadows through which the shallow river meandered. (The photos below were taken in the fading evening light on the way home). It was such a tranquil rural scene.

As always I kept my eyes open for otters, this is Tarka country, but all I saw were ducks, a heron flying along and small groups of sheep & lambs, cattle and horses and some proud geese with one gosling. That particular house also had a Gloucester Old Spot in the next field.

It is a beautiful valley with not many buildings even at the train stations, until you get nearer to Exeter. I've been mastering my mp4 player and I was able to listen to music, while refraining from singing along as I do at home! on the way which helped drown out the clatter of the very rickety train which as well as a having peculiar side-to-side corkscrewing motion also shuddered a lot at slow speeds. My reserved seat in the train to Bristol was in the quiet carriage so I was able to listen to an audio book, once I'd worked out how to stop the mp4 playing random selections. Unfortunately on the return journey I couldn't turn the thing on so I resorted to sudoku. Quiet carriages are a very good idea with not even the sound of loud conversations which can be so annoying.


My last trip to to Bristol had begun badly with the most awful 20 min walk by a 6 lane main road surrounded by anonymous corporate buildings. All the things I hate most about cities, noise, dirt & ugliness. I decided to be more enterprising and found a bus to take me to the centre. It was only my 3rd trip to Bristol but I had a picture of where things were in my head and managed to navigate myself with no problems.



I made my way to the brand new Cabot Centre. Here the streets have been pedestrianised and covered with interesting glass canopies. A lot of the shops are high end clothing stores with marble floors and beautiful decor and are aimed at the younger market with lots of cash. It was nice being able to have a leisurely wander but most weren't my type of clothes at all.



There was also a very good selection of food places. Normally my frugal nature keeps me away from cafes etc and I might buy a sandwich or a treat to take away. I decided that as I was going to the Dental Hospital I would splash out first and have something special. It was so hard to choose, should I have a wholesome jacket potato or sit down on a squashy leather sofa in the Chocolate Hotel with a bowl of drinking chocolate ? Should I choose Mexican or Spanish,visit the creperie or try a Starbucks ? In the end fate decided, I found Patisserie Valerie - when I was a small child a VERY big treat would be to have a pastry from Patisserie Valerie in West Kensington.

So after some deliberation I settled down with a latte and piece of cheese cake even lighter than the one I used to make for parties. Expensive but worth it for once.



One of the shops I really enjoyed was an Asian run shop selling thousands of pieces of cheap jewellery, bindis etc. It was like being let loose in a sweet shop. With the Bollywood music playing it took me back to the days of living in East London where a walk down Green Street would transport you to a different continent with the people, languages, spices, music, food, jewellery and clothing shops of Asia all around.



As I tried to find the bus back to the station I came across signs for a ferry to the station. That sounded like fun so I made my way down to the industrial canals and waited in the sunshine for the ferry. I spent my time sitting crossed legged on a bench eating soft chocolates from Thornton's looking like an ageing free spirit.

Here's the guy driving the ferry, he does this all year round and they also go right down to the Clifton Bridge. If I ever go back to Bristol I'll have to give that a go. The landing stage where I waited for the ferry is just behind him.

It was less than 10 mins to the station but was cheaper than the bus and there were lots of photo opportunities as we went past house boats moored by new and refurbished corporate buildings. I was thrilled to have found this exciting way to travel.

The old industrial area of Bristol has been undergoing a lot of refurbishment with elegant walkways which I presume are well used by the office walkers. This was the landing stage at the station, all limestone blocks and slate very well designed. I can just imagine throngs of commuters jumping on the ferry to get to work.

More photos of Bristol's architecture later.