Tags
Anemone coronaria, Chelsea Pensioners, Diamond Jubilee, Diarmuid Gavin, forget-me-nots, Omphalodes liniflora, Orlaya grandiflora, Potentilla 'Gibson's Scarlet', Queen Elizabeth II, RHS Chelsea
Celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II will take place over this extended bank holiday weekend. My own nod to the Queen’s 60 year reign is with this posy of red, white and blue, picked from my allotment and garden.
It’s made from the white Orlaya grandiflora and Omphalodes linifolia, both are hardy annuals which I sowed last autumn to produce some early flowers.
The blue is provided simply with forget-me-nots and a few cornflowers. Forget-me-nots are a biennial and can be sown in July for flowering the following spring. Once growing in your garden they will happily self sow and pop up of their own accord every year. Some might say this is a nuisance but they are easy enough to remove if they appear somewhere they’re not wanted. The blue cornflowers are such an easy plant to grow and use as a cut flower. They are a hardy annual and can be sown in autumn to over winter and then flower in late spring and early summer. Further spring sowings can provide blooms right through to autumn. They are one of the best flowers for attracting bees and hoverflies into your garden or onto the allotment. Best picked just as the flower is starting to open, they will last a week in a vase.
Potentilla fruticosa ‘Gibson’s Scarlet’ growing in my garden
Finally, the red comes from a few stems of Potentilla fruticosa ‘Gibson’s Scarlet’. A clump forming perennial plant with strawberry like leaves, it is covered in shocking red flowers throughout the summer. The contrast of the red flowers and the green foliage makes me think of the Chelsea Pensioners, stood on Diarmuid Gavin’s garden tower, at this year’s RHS Chelsea Show. I don’t know where, or when, the saying ‘red and green should never be seen’ originated but I love the striking colour combination.
Diarmuid Gavin’s Chelsea 2012 Garden (image by Andy Paradise, courtesy of picselect)
The centrepiece flower is a red Anemone coronaria. These are grown from corms and can be planted in autumn for spring flowers or in spring for summer flowers. I have found them tricky to grow on my own wet soil, even with grit added for improved drainage, and only a few made it through last winter, but they are such beautiful flowers I will not be defeated by them and already have a cunning plan in place for success next year.
I fear the weather knows it’s a bank holiday, as this lovely warm spell looks set to end, with a return to more typical British weather. A wet bank holiday, what a surprise! But whatever you’re doing this weekend, I hope you have a great time.
Happy celebrations to you; I love Anemone coronaria too but have so far never managed to grow any. I saw some beauties at Chelsea and was recommended to order and plant fresh corms in autumn for my dry soil. So if I can jsut find somewhere to squeeze them in…….. Christina
Lovely choice of flowers. I’ve been looking in the garden for what I can use to decorate my table for the weekend, I think it will be dark red roses, white hesperis matronalis and maybe some blue iris, think my forget me nots are too far gone. Hope we all have a good weekend!
Your posy is wonderful, just right for the forthcoming celebrations. I always seem to grow flowers which will flower the same year, but I think I shall have a go at a couple of biennials this year, sweet williams and stocks. I love them both as they smell gorgeous.
Very pretty. I’d like to try Anemone coronaria one of these days, I’ve admired them from afar for a while…
Lovely posy for the celebration!
Thanks, Donna. There have been some amazing events on it’s just a shame the British weather has let us down. Typically torrential downpours.
I really like cornflowers! Sadly it looks like being dull and wet here so I guess that I shall be doing a lot of sofa flying with a good book, a cup of tea and some biscuits. xx
I think cornflowers are such cheerful flowers. It’s chucking it down here. Managed a soggy hour or so at the plot doing a few jobs but it’s miserable. Like the idea of tea and biscuits.WWx
I will be working on Monday, WW – otherwise I don’t get paid! A. coronaria grows happily enough at the Priory – which is odd as it does get very wet! I hope you’re going to present the posy? D
Sorry to hear you have to work Monday. It sucks when you know others are having an extra day off. My husband often works bank holidays, he did last Christmas, this Easter and then his does New Year coming up. It’s a bit of a novelty to have a bank holiday actually available and then look at the weather. PANTS! Looking at the flowers on the barge designed by Rachel de Thame, I believe, I think the Queen probably has more flowers than she knows what to do with.
Hi,
Lovely posy; no diamond jubilee celebrations here but I do have a lovely couple of little posies at the moment; one vase with two types of rose in and Geranium thurstonianum and the other a mixture of sweet rocket, erysimum, dianthus, Allium and Chive blooms.
I’ll miss my cornflowers this year – I didn’t sow any, a decision I now deeply regret. All that wet weather completely stopped any seed sowing for me and also meant many of the seeds I had already sown waited months to be planted out and as a result my sweet peas are still only a foot high even though I sowed them in February
Time to buy some from a garden centre me thinks!
My cornflowers have been a bit of a disaster this year. The ones I’m picking at the moment are from autumn self sown plants, but I’ve only got a few of these. I sowed some more which didn’t germinate because of the cold and then some were eaten by slugs. I’ve got some more that are growing slowly, so hopefully I’ll get a late crop. My sweet peas have been a bit of a disaster too. I had some lovely plants sown in pots in Feb that the slugs have mauled. There are some more at the allotment that seem to be doing better but it’s really disappointing. Your posies sound lovely though. Weather here today has been miserable. I know we needed the rain but still.
It’s just so disappointing this year isn’t it! I’m really going to miss the Cosmos this year. Bah. And it’s much too late to attempt more now.
I hate to imagine how the farmers are doing with crops because I imagine most things have failed.