A Diamond Jubilee Posy

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.

Should have stayed in bed

Tags

allotment, forget-me-nots, garden, wellies

There are few places I’d rather be than my garden or allotment but just occasionally that relaxing day doesn’t turn out quite as I would have hoped…

1. My foray into the border to plant up some forget-me-nots is curtailed by the neighbour’s cat that has used the newly mulched border as a litter tray. Fortunately wellies and gloves remain clean but I go off in search of a carrier bag to remove the offending item. Of course I can’t find any carrier bags because I’m helping to save the planet, so I eventually find a freezer bag….that will have to do.
2. After planting up the forget-me-nots I return their pots to the shed. But the pots are all stacked quite precariously and adding any further pots results in an avalanche of plastic and half an hour of reconstruction into a hopefully more sturdy structure.
3.  I eventually get round to the main job I had planned to do – potting on some seedlings but because my shed multi-tasks at this time of year as a log store I find myself sitting on the path outside the shed pricking out.   Unfortunately, I’m pretty clumsy anyway and whilst tidying up I knock over several pots and squish a couple of seedlings.
4. I remember to water in the forget-me-nots and newly potted up seedlings (I have been known to get distracted and forget to water newly planted plants only to remember later that night so I end up watering in my pyjamas and wellies with a torch). I don’t, however remember that the hose pipe nozzle was damaged by the frost last winter and has developed little holes along one side of the nozzle. This results in an unusual, and always surprising, sideways squirting of water along the length of the nozzle before the user can get to twist the nozzle enough so that water actually comes out the front . Damp jeans (mmm…. lovely!) generally results. So what should have been a little bit of gentle pottering has taken 3 times longer than it should have done and I wouldn’t say I feel relaxed as I go off muttering about cats, hosepipes and needing a bigger shed. Fortunately days like these are rare, which is just as well really.