The main colour of flower that we haven't looked at in this sequence is white. So here are a few white flowers.
The one above is a pansy (don't know which one) hat has been in the pots by the front door for three years. Pansies are often sold as annuals but almost all are perennials. I don't kknow if they are sold as annual for reasons of aesthetics (because they look very straggly and strung out) or for economics (so that growers can sell pansies e very year.)
I'm not a huge fan of pansies and prefer violas. There isn't a distinct line between them - it's related to the size of the flower - you can defnitely tell this is a pansy.

But let's not digress too far. White flowers - white flowers seem much more common in the wild than they are in the garden. I think that only in the lilies is white a desired colour,, oh, and roses too, and maybe even carnations, and orchids... and chrysanthemums... okay I take that last observation back - the white flowers are often grown as cut flowers to symbolise purity and often death too - the white lilies on the chest.
Talking of which - white carnation. this is from the hanging basket carnations. There is a distinct pinkness to this flower though.

White flowers, in the wild - many small wild flowers are white... but let's just look at the piccies - not sure what the first one is but then we have the foxgloves that we've seen before and at the bottom are the white dicentras which are new for this year.

 

 
Okay we've recently had the greens (the labiates) the pinks and reds and yesterday we had the blues so today we're going for a sunshine yeelow flower. if you're in the UK you might lkike this because it's summer so naturally you don't get to see much of the sun. In fact the third Ashes test is washed out today so it must be miserable all round the country.
This sunny yellow flower is a Sedum - a succulent evolve to live in places that either have low rainfall, very thin soils or very rapidly draining environments. In the Uk it is largely the latter two - thin soils and rapidly draining places. The classic sedums in the UK are called stonecrops. Not suprisingly that is because they occur naturally on stone (out) crops - where there is little soil to keep the moisture. Nowadays they are very common on similar enviroments such as gravel paths, concrete block roads, the centre gravel reservations of motorways, rockeries and walls.
There are sedums thriving on our walls (grown from seeds by me - mixed sedums - so can't identify this particular one - best estimate is S acre, then moved to the wall last year.)
 With its cousins - other sedums - they are spreading along the top of the wall and down the side too. They are extremely easy to propogate as many sedums will reproduce vegetatively. If you break off a wee bit and it drops into an area with a bit of soil and a bit of moisture then it will grow - they are one of the easiest plants to vegetatively propogate (- yep, sounds like a good plant to grow for sales - easy to growm low water requirement - low soil requirement)
 

In addition to the wall this Sedum kamtschaticum  (best guess) has established itself (I planted it so not established itself technically) in the new 'gravel garden. That is I've banked up the gravel at the base of the greenhouse around some of the rockery rocks and we'll be trying sedums and thrift (Artemia maritima) in there - should work well - at least this sedum has worked so far. the crunch will be winter - whether it can survive a covering of snow or no. In addition there are also established plants on the edgge of the bog garden (the soil is extremely thin at the top as the sheeting is only just below the surface) and at the front of the rockery - again the soil is thin. However at the front of the rockery it is struggling with the competition from other plants. Others respond to the higher moisture better than the sedum (the rockery drains quite steeply down to the front so the sedums - and house leeks too - get a lot of the rain runoff). As I said above the sedums were grown from seeds from a mixed package and there were very successful - there were loads of seedlings which thrived in our place. There are at least three or four types of stonecrop growing on the walls and in the various areas - i recommend them if you are after a tough, easily grown plant.

Sounds like a definate candidate - and T&M are selling thaam at £8.49 (plus p&p) for 6 plants - that's almost £1.50 for a sedum!!! I can definitely do better than that.
(Sedums and Ajugas on the list then).

You can see a pink flowered sedum behind the plant above (one the edge of the bog garden) but I leave the other sedums for a different post especially the big "Ice plant" sedums... oooh let's lob on a couple of teser photos which show you just how little soil these sedums need to take a foot hold... or should it be a hand old as they are on a wall... I patted the soil into the cracks last autumn with just a sprig or two of the plants and they have lasted through the winter and look like they are doing okay. I think the lime in the cement might be good for them as compared to our acidic soil. thoough the ones in the soil seem to be doing okay - even those in the shade... in the damp shade... our ice plants.

I was suffering from a suffice of red flowers - fuchsias and roses and kniphofia - so I had to get some blue flowers up her to redress the balance. For some reason small blue flowers appeal more to me than big red and yellows and white. My wife is definitely a big red and yellow.
Now if I were going to force a reason I could say that she is a fire person and I am an ice person (is that why she makes me melt, or maybe why I extinguish her flame...) In case you didn't know there is an activist (to be nice) called Leonard jeffries who maintains that fire people - sorry - go tthat wrong - it is sun people (people born/evolved in the tropics) are different to ice people (people born/evolved in the temperate/ cold regions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Jeffries
Personally I prefer Jared Diamonds opinions in "Gun Germs and Steel" who basically puts it down to climate and early availability of agriculture which led to the Middle East dominating everything (but then I would because he's an ice person like me) - all about the geography and positive feedback loops that emphasied certain societal traits - but I digress and this a blog about growing flowers not world history. So yeah - I'm an Ice person and my wife is a sun person and today we're going to have some blue flowers - Campanulas though which sort I'm not 100% sure. I'm fairly certain that these in the rockery are not C. rotundifolia - the Scottish Bluebell - aka the hare bell in the rest of the Uk. I have seen the Scottish bluebells in the wild and they are much taller and the stem is very delicate. I bought seeds for C rotundifolia this year so hopefully... wait a minute... did I? I can't honestly remember - may be one of the orders I cancelled before I clicked on the buy button.
Anyhow this is almost definitely Campanula carpatica (blue version obviously) bought as part of a ground cover collection from J Parkers.http://www.jparkers.co.uk/Index.cfm?fuseaction=product.standard&continueaction=category.search&search=ground&producttype_id=49404___##4##___ blue... definite hints of red in there.

I was very tempted to just post a few more pics of roses from the garden but the week of labiates makes me crave a bit of variety for the next few days. Here are the kniphofia - torch lilies, traffic lights - which I moved over the fenc ein autumn last year. The big ones - where the leaves wer more than a foot long - have flowered this year which is a great recovery and I doidn't expect that to happen. The smaller ones are hanging on and fighting the encroaching umbelliferer/nettles.. They seem to thrive up here - once they get established the kniphofia take off like a rocket - which is lucky because of the shapes.

The one in the froont are blooming too - including the transplanted ones.

If you look at the flowers closely they are nice too - frilly as they work their way up the stem.

 

 

Staying with the theme of colour and flowers I decided top post a few pictures of the roses around the garden. I'm not sure why but a few of these seem very erotic when tightly cropped - I think it's because the skin iof a rose petal looks (and feels) very like human skin - idealised human skin of course ala snow white and rose red... or maybe that it is like smooth skin, delicate and soft. Certainly the drops of rain add to the feel of the picture.

Or maybe it's just because I've been away from home for too long and even an old sink cloth might look erotic to me... well that's spoiled the mood has it not?

Okayt what do you do if you wake up to find Charlie Dimmock and Deep Purple hanging around your picnic table?
No you don't throw another shrimp on the barbie, you invite Alice Hoffman, the Dollar Princess and the Pink Marshmallow over to join them - at least that is what Jiurie did.
of course you can see the photos already so there is no way I can build up the suspense or try to play this out any longer - they are, of course, all fuchsias and this is our table right this weekend (picture courtesy of Jiurie) just before it began to rain all day today.
Charlie Dimmock - note the lack of cheap puns -

Deep Purple - a fluffier version of my favourite -

Alice Hoffman

Dollar Princesses (not the ugly sisters)

And the picnic table;...

Well after a week of labiate leaves - more pictures of green nettley things didn't appeal to me. I've got a few more posts about labiates but enough about foliage and smells, let's break up the visuals (I thought) with some colour on Display (the name of the variety below)- shocking pink, deep blues, vibrant reds - so it has to be some fuchsias ro bring colour into a wet weekend.
A wet weekend and all the world in a raindrop... albeit it a slightly fuzzy raindrop.

For two of the remaining labiates in the garden we have differing stories - one has been tootling along for the last few years - moved a couple of times - and just getting bigger and better each time. The other is a relatively new plant.
The one that is new is Majoram - new because the one above was raised from seed this year while the other Majoram in the herb tub was bought as a plant from B&Q and stuck into the tub in autumn last year. It has come through the winter well (while it's extremely close cousin Oregano didn't survive the winter).
Majoram is Origanum majorana while Oregano is Origanum vulgare - in the same genus and often lumped in with Majoram as the same species. Oregano is commonly known as the pizza herb - it is the distinctive whiff that you get when you open a tub or packet of pizza herbs.
However like so many of the other labiates our Majoram has been largely ignored because we are flower gardeners and it doesn't have spectacular flowers (or any flowers so far).

Both of them are mediterranean an cold sensitive which is suprising to me as there is a native Scottish Majoram found in these their hills known as wild majoram and also O Vulgare.
This is what the tub looked like in the middle of April. You can see that the two Origanums were bare to the twig - another failure i thought, especially when compared to the chives from the Black Isle which already had the odd flower appearing (I do like to graz on chive flowers - they are very intense)

By June - well i wouldn't say that it is thriving but on the sheltered side of the plant it showing good growth. I wonder if it might be worth erecting some sort of wind break to help the herbs - only problem is that all the sun comes from the South same as most of the wind.

I have just noticed that the seeds I sowed were oregano not majoram so the big plant above and below may not survive outside - it will have to come in to the green house for the winter.
I weonder if i can source out some of the Scottish majoram - I'm sure I can - probably from the same Black isle nursery - and then see if I can grow that better.
The other option is to make a cold frame for the mediterranean labiates - a relatively cheap one that will let me over winter them in the garden - maybe a cloche als Victorian style.
And I haven't even got on to the truley hardy labiates in the garden yet... tomorrow for sure.

a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc05969/3711534" title="DSC05969">
There are a few labiates left over which won't be enough for a full post - though they might - let's see how this goes.First off there is the rosemary I blogged about before. Above is the prostrate rosemary which I might pot on and keeep in the warehouse over winter.

One labiate which was a great suprise is a hemp-nettle over the fence right next to one of the new willows. I did take a couple of photos of the pink flowers but they were blurry because of the wind plus don't seem to be with me in Libya... let me have another look. This is the best I can find. It is self seeded and an annual - should it stay or should it go? Stay - for now - there are more serious weeds to worry about at the moment - the stinging nettles, rosebay willow herb, pigweed and nightshade to name just a few.
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Found them - the photos - you can easily see why it is called hemp nettle - the leaves are very nettle like - my wife almost hacked it down before I stopped her.

In the grass/lawn is Self-heal. I tried to mow around it to let it flower and spread but I forgot to mention it to Jiurie and she ran the Qualcast straight over. It is still there just not with flower spikes as it's growing points are below the sweep of a mower blade and we stick our blades at the highest level because it is a hand push.
I actually prefer the hand pushed (at the high height) as it is much lighter (we tend not to use the grass collector because of the weight) because there is no motor. So why not use a self propelling electric or petrol mower. We did and they just do not last. Both of them have conked out - the petrol after one year, the electric after two. I saw an online survey from a mower firm about servicing - how often and who by. 16% of people who answers never service - they just throw away and buy a new one. What, with the cost of servicing that is often the most economic option. However it isn't very green - throwaway society - hate it. So, for the moment, we will stick to the hand powered and keep ourselves fit that way (okay Jiurie will do 90% of it so she'll be 90% fit and I'll only be 10% fit.
I also realised that I don't have a good photo of it even though there are a few growing in one of the plunge bed sacks (the one on the porch with the Ajugas - I just can't stop blowing my own bugle about them... did I use that joke already in a post. I think I did.) Here's a blurry photos of self-heal aka Prunella vulgaris, heal-all, all-heal and blue curl.
http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/selfheal.htm

I think there is one more post (at least) out of these labiates

At the Burn o' vat I found a plant in the damp woodlands which I am pretty cerain is wild Bugle - i.e. Ajuga reptans but also known as;  blue bugle, bugleherb, buglewee, carpetweed, common bugle, water bugle, sweet bugle, virginian water horehound and gypseyweed. (though I'm not convinced of the last two usages - Wikipedia has them down as other species and of course we always believe Wikipedia). These names come from http://www.answers.com/topic/bugle-weed which also tells us that in the US a different plant is also called bugle.
Anywho, answers.com also has a lot to say about the medicinal use of bugle  which I was suprised to find, also that  it used to be thought of as a cureall... and now it is rarely thought of as anything but ground cover. When I get back this is another plant I have to try as a herbal tea, maybe even as a quick tast (supoosed to be bitter). It is also supposed to be fragrant like miost labiates when crushed buit that is something I definitely don't believe. I have spent hours pulling butterciups from the various clumps and I have not come across on iotaa of sniffiness. Of course this could be a genetic thing (I'm one of those who can't tast quinine either - remember doing that at school. To some it is extremely nbitter yet to others like me the liquid is tasteless. Another one is bleach - m y wife can smell it for hours and finds it offensive - for me it barely registers beyond a quick wrinkle of the nose. I wonder what, if, I can smell that others can't.)
Where was I... Ajuga.
I found the wild version of the plant - I am fairly convinced that was bugle. You may recall that I thought that I would miss the Ajuga flowers. I did miss most of them but the ones in the deep shade, right under the fence next to the gate were/are still flowering freely as are just a couple in the main patch.

So today I got the collection bug (as I just received my annual contract completion bonus - money, pocket, burning - then I was feeling good because I DIDN'T waste it on a new camera - now how stupid is that feeling good because I didn't spend any money, really shallow - like the roots on the Ajuga - they don't go down more than a couple of centimetres.)  so I got the bug and added another couple of varieties to the collection.

I bought Ajuga 'Artic Fox'  from ebay (which is an A. pyramidalis (like the metallic crispa) rather than a reptans).  supposedly A pyramidalis doesn't send out stolons so is more compact and less invaisive.  It may be less invaisive but it definately puts out stolons - see below after a couple of months in the plunge bed (i.e. planted still inside the pot.

I've also read that there is a A. reptans that is called metallica  crispa and one called arctic fox too - confusing (or maybe the web page was confused.. The metallica crispa may be the one I tried last year which died.
The other variety I bought today from eBay is:- AJUGA GOLDEN BEAUTY

Now there are several other varieties I don't know in addition to the ones in the plunge bed/ main garden other varieties - clearly I have a few more to find. The most interesting sounds like Ajuga reptans 'Planet Zork' (Planet Zork Bugleweed). Really!!!
A bugle called Planet Zork that looks like it has been sprayed with weed killer
Here is the description from http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/page5.html.
Part Sun to Light ShadeZone: 5-7 2" tall Origin: Japan Open House/Web-Only! Okay, I'd probably grow this just for the name, but imagine my excitement when it turned out to be a cool garden plant as well. Most ajugas don't fare well in our heat and humidity, but to my surprise, A. 'Planet Zork' has performed wonderfully in our garden trials. This compact selection comes from Japan where its slow clumping growth habit and upwardly cupped, crinkled, grey-green leaves with a pink overlay are highly prized. Superficially, it looks like Ajuga 'Burgundy Glow' that was sprayed with weedkiller...a likely leftover from the "better gardening through chemicals" program. Pot size: 24 fl. oz (709.77 ml) #06721 

Other varieties are listed at: http://www.simplybeautifulgardens.com/plant_info.aspx?phid=002101249002177 http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/perennial/ajuga/
http://www.groundcover.com/info/carpet-bugleweed.html
So we still have to collect:
1 A reptans wild type
2 A reptans alba (white flowered - found in UK nursery with the wild type - very tempted to pocket a sprig of wild type from the burn o' vat but didn't - it wouldn't have survived and it would have been wrong to do so.
3 Golden glow (wonder if same as golden beauty above or the Rainbow below)
4 Bronze Beauty (which i think is the one that died in the garden last year)
5 Mahogany
6 Purple Torch
7 Silver Beauty
8 variegated
9 Dixie Chips
10 Gaiety
11 Multicolour
12 A genevensis  (totenham and also a pink one)

There is also a pink flowered variety of A genovese. I'm thinking that quite a few of them may be US names for the varieites we have over here and I also just realised that that is a really boring list - sorry about that.
In the garden we haveat least 7 varieities which are doing well... well surviving the ravages of winter, slugs and buttercups.
Before I  list them I can recommend some internet/blog posts about A reptans at other blogs http://www.paghat.com/ajuga2.html

The photo above is braunherz  (or atropurpurea - I must decide and then buy the other one) and we have seen burgundy glow and caitlins giant in a previous post.

http://frarys-fresh-flowers.blog.co.uk/2009/07/01/wild-orchids-6433704/ - bit weird that it is labelled wild orchids when the title was Ajuga wars.
And then there is metallica crispa ( Ithink the one that died was called broinze beauty - I must find it again)

So into the garden in April and starting to send out stolons now went Black scallop. (that's 5)

in the rockery (and also a couple in the plunge bed) is Rainbow (#6). You can see that it is fighting off the wild strawberries which I planted in far too many places in the rockery and is another stolon spreading survivor and the slugs. It isn't so vigourous or maybe the place is wrong (or the competition too fierce). You can see below that the Rainbow in the plunge bed is much darker because of the shade.

And finally, for now, we have in the plunge bed we have a very small leaved bugle called chocolate chip. Growing well.
I think I might grow some bugle for sale in  the autumn or next year - it should be a really easy plant and very cheap. To that effect I have just ordered the pots from ebay, and I have the plants - I can get the compost/soil from B&Q in bulk when I get back - I think - good to go we have our first product - let hopes it sells.

Labiates are usually grown either for the foliage or the oil (the taste/smell) and rarely for the flowers. The flowers tend to be small - though they are very intense colours and nice shapes - like tiny orchids. Garden flowers are usually grown because they are big and bright (like pansies or tulips) or intensely fragrant (e.g. honeysuckles or jasmines) or both (like carnations, lilies or sweet peas).

Here is another labiate that I bought from B&Q in easrly spring for £1 a plant. I don't have any prejudice against B&Q - equivalent of Home Depot - as this way I can test out plants without spending too much and then decide whether to invest in different more exotic varities. When I say test out I am not really talking about micro climates or soil types but test out against THEM. Any plant that goes into our garden has to survive the bunny mowers ort have a darn-good reason why it should go inside the fence of the stalag.
I got three Stachys byzantiae because I read that Stachys are rabbit resistant - well not resistant more that rabbits don't like to eat them. It sems that rabbits don't like highly flavoured leaves (hence most herbs and the lavenders are safe), they don't like thick waxy leaves (hence the sea holly and roses are safe), they don't like spikey leaves (hence the thistles and the teasel are safe) and they don't like hairt leaves (hence the Dusty Miller, verbascum and and Stachys are safe). When I say "safe" that means that they won't eat them if there is some alternative (like grass) available but they will eat them if pushed such as when the ground is covered in snow. They will also eat them if they are young - the plants or the rabbits - young plants, especially seedlings are usually less fragrant,waxy, spikey or hairy while young rabbits are more stupid so may just bite at the plants as an experiment. And when they nbote they shear straight through most plant - baby bunny mowers have bitten off several roseds - the wee.... bunnies - straight as if cut by secateurs.

Anyhow something that seems to be common to labiates are that they spread vegetatively either underground like the mints (you can see a line where the root spreads and plants pop up at each node) or above ground with stolons like the Ajuga bugles. It looks like the Stachys is spreading quickly above ground. Those three wee plants from spring are already spreading into a patch maybe 1 metre by 1/2 metre, are fighting off the buttercups, and are rooting where they touch the soil and that is all before they have really become established - they've only been there since April!
I won't describe the medicinal use as you can look that up yourself in Wikipedia and I would be nerely precising what they say because I haven't investigated the taste, smell or use of lambs ear (one of it's common names and you can tell why can't you) suffice to say that another common name for others in the genus is woundwort so you can maybe predict what the leaves are used for (aka betony)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachys_byzantina

Turns out that the chinese artichoke - a small knobbly tune which is seen in many of the catalogues nowadays - is a Statchys sppecies. If these lambs ears do well I might try some chinese artichokes especially out in the main garden and se if they survive the bunny mowers - all the perennial vegetables I've tried so far outside of the Stalag (except potatoes and garlic)have been chopped to the ground so this is worth a try - yes I will try them.

>
These last few posts seem to have taken a labiate theme (apart from the prunus bark). Rosemary, thyme, sage are all labiates - the bilateral flowers with big lips are the same for all of them. They must be blooming now because all the bees are out and about. The bees sure do love the labiate flowers. And of course they often have fragrant leaves - fragrant oils - so many herbs are labiates. Mint is the classic one, (the group is commonly called the mint family) and lemon balm, marjoram, basil and lavender - which we have I'll blog about another day. Coleus too - though you don't often see in flower in the Uk - salvas too - all have the upper and lower lips are bitter and (I've read) wil get you high if you smoke them. You won't enjoy the smoke but you might enjoy the effects I'm told. I didn't know Teak was a labiate tree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiatae The current fashion is to call them the lamiaceae.
So dead nettles - Lamium purpureum is a common weed.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium_purpureum It is one of the labiates we do have in the garden is red dead nettle. It turned up, self-seeded as a weed in one of the big sacks. I moved it over to the tub and this year it has grown like - well - like a weed.

So last year I bought a load of alpines at the end of the season (half price of course - need I tell you) and planted them in  one of the tubs. One of them grew much quicker than the others and seemed to takle off much quicker than the others. I transferred it to the rockery late last year along with the sea thrifts and the saxifrages. It has yet again really taken off this spring. I didn't realise that the white leaved flower was a cultivated red until this June when the flowers apeared slightly bigger and slightly brassier than the wild dead nettle. The picture of the flower at the top is this ornamental dead nettle.

The ornamental dead nettle is a real survivor - it has self seeded (I think) and appeared in several places on the patio where there is scarcely enough to dirty a finger nail. I love a survivor (after so many expensive failures) but I guess in a couple of years time I will be complaining about the damn red nettles taking over the rockery and the garden.

http://www.dundeebotanicgarden.co.uk
In Dundee these was a tree with great bark, it peels off like sheets of paper. Underneath it was beige, clean and fresh, above it was white and dusty. It is clearly closely related to the Cherry Bark tree Prunus serrula except that Prunus serrula is shint red bark - you may have seen it around as it is a common ornamental.

On the other hand at Balmoral I saw a couple of trees with bark which was almost the opposite of the Prunus - these were evergreens with deeply scarred bark. Don't ask me why I'm putting these pictures up today or why I don't know anything about the trees themselv - sometimes it is just nice to look at a pretty picture.

For the morning of the daughter's graduation in Dundee we collected the gown and hood, had the obligatory rip-off priced formal photos taken and then went to the Dundee Botanical gardens to take more photos - kind of like people have wedding photos taken (or should that be weeding photos as we went to the gardens - that's a killer!) We got some real doozies of photos some of which I'll share with you (and the Balmoral photos.. and the Newburgh photos) over the next few weeks.
The DUndee Botanical has a great many trees and could almost be called an arboritum rather than a botanical garden. There are a few flower beds (and a large glasshouse) but most of it is trees and grass. It is divided into geographical regions to group the plants together.
After several posed photos we turned the corner of a wall and there was a ,agnificent silver tre that almost shone out among the others. It was in the Australaisn section so it was, naturally, an Eucalyptus tree. (Weird but an Eucalyptus sounds rounds - a Eucalyptus sounds better but is grammatically incorrect - weird.)
When the wind blew through the tree there was a wave of fragrance that enveloped you - really beautiful.

Furry silver leaves (glaucous) are classic signs of drought resistence and eucalyptus trees are some of the few big trees there are in Tripoli. There were also big Eucalypts at the back of the school I used to teach at in Balata, Tavua, Fiji - but that was the dry side of the island - so dry in fact that we only had two bouts of rain in the two years I taught there and they were both due to hurricanes (one of which was during my first week there).
Eucalypts are classic dry area trees. Which is strange because I remember reading that Eucalypts are also useful for drying up wet areas - that is you plant them around the edge of damp/muddy patches and they will suck all the water up and dry out the land.

But perhaps it depends on which sort of Eucalyptus you are talking about - there are over 700 species and Wikipedia also confirms their reputation as voracious water sucker-up-ers. Weird kind of tree to use in very dry areas such as Tripoli then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus

There are types of Eucalypt that can survive the Scottish winters (at least sea-level scottish winters e.g. in Dundee) so I may give it a go. The classic one to grow in the UK is Eucalyptus gunni which also happens to be the common one used in bouquets - the one with round silver leaves. My wife bought a bouquet while I was away (inbetween the tulips and the foxgloves in the garden) so I thought I might give it a try while I'm here - cut the stems , dab of hormone powder and shove in the soil - might work but I think I should have covered the pots with plastic bags to keep them from drying out as I don't think they'll be kept damp enough while I'm away to give them a fair go. You never know, maybe my green fingers (or silver thumbs) will be lucky. Can't hurt as the twigs would only have been thrown away and composted anyway. That's a chysanthemum twig in there with them by the by - again no loss as the twigs were ripped off when I took the tub out so they only would have been compsted.
http://www.jparkers.co.uk/Index.cfm?fuseaction=product.standard&continueaction=category.search&search=eucalyptus&producttype_id=49008

At the Burn O' vat I came across a plant which I think is wild sage. It certainly looks like it and tasts like it but there are several other labiates that it could be. later on we saw the real deal at Balmoral. On the North side of the castle there is a path leading to the only room that is open in the house (bit disappointing that - I would have liked to see much more inside but it is a private house so almost nothing is on display). In the cracks in the pavement are planted various herbs - and there was a large sage plant.

later on we walked round the kitchen/flower garden and there was another bed of sage in full flower - both blue flowered and white flowered.
Now we have also tried sage in Tipperty but with not too much success. I planted four varieities around the edge of one of the tubs (and lilies in the middle again same as the Thyme tub). Two of the four have done okay and two have disappeared. Suprisingly it is the standard green variety which has disappeared (and the tricolour sage) and the two more ornamental varieities (the Purple Sage - nothing to do with Zane Grey and the Riders of the Purple Sage (which is a great book) - and the varigated/golden sage - possibly called Icterina). The straight forward sage tried to come back but the lilies seem to have defeated it while the other two have fount through and are doing great in the shelter of the lily stems.

Sage is not a herb I would automatically reach for when preparing anything - except for the sage in Paxo's Sage and Onion stuffing for the Sunday roast chicken or for the Christmas turkey. But then I wasn't raised with any herbs except mint for hiome made mint sauce for the lamb (the vinegar helps cut therough the vinegar) and it has been difficult to get into the habit of using herbs despite us growing them. I do now use chives in any sort of salads with mayonaise based dressing (and I graze the chives and the chive flowers in particular when I walk out side or tend to the tubs,) and I'll chew on a lemon balm leaf when I pass but using herb in everyday cookery still eludes me. I guess I need to be in Aberdeen all the time so that I can build up the habit.
My girls seem to like basil and other herbs frequently, and my wife has got into having mint sprigs in a jar on the kitchen window so that she can make mint tea. Again I've never got into mint tea or herbal teas - I think that my sense of taste is too poor to appreciate herbal teas - they just taste like hot water to me. Shame - I would like to have a great sense of taste and appreciate wine and herbal teas - but I don't really miss what I never had.

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Just before I returned to the car at the Linn of Dee i snapped a couple of shots of a common flowering plant at this time of year - wild Thyme. It is typically found along the side of footpaths where the traffic will keep the grass short. That way the light can get to the thyme and it will thrive. If the grass gets too long it cannot thrive in the shade (more of which later). From the flower, which is a mere couple of millimeters long, it is clearly a labiate flower like that of mint and sage and many of the other pungent herbs, and also like the Ajugas. looks like the Tipperty garden and the NE Aberdeenshire is also good for labiates.

We have thyme in 2 areas of the garden - one lot in the tubs and one lot in the rockery. The one left in the rockery is doing great this year (after a year or two of struggling) and flowering like... a flowering fool. I think this is the variety Silver Queen. The heat from the rock and the exposure to sunlight seems to suit it. I have tried thyme a couple of times in the past at the front of the rockery but this is the first one to really flourish - the others lost their leaves and never came back. I also tried it in the shaded area of the grass in the front (where the primulas are) but it just disappeared - probably because it was too wet but mainly because it was too dark with the shade of the trees and the buttercups and grasses climbing all over it. (living and learning, living and learning).

The thyme in the tubs has had a mixed fate. I planted a full range (okay maybe 4 or 5 varieties) across the whole of the tub. Unfortunately I also planted lilies among the thyme as we were pushed for space in the tubs and the Thyme didn't look too spectacular. (I also did the same for the sage tub but that wasn't too much of a disaster - future post). The lilies sprang up and shaded most of the thyme so that only the thyme that was right at the edge of the tub survived. For some reason I really don't nderstand the silver queen and the Old english at the back is doing much better than that at the front. It is suprising because the front has more light as those at the back are shaded by the lilies, by the house and by the final bag of rocks for the rockery. Perhaps it is this increased exposure to the wind at the front that has retarded the thyme.
It may be time to take sone cuttings and try them in the new gravel gardens or along the side of the drive at the back.

When we visited Balmoral a couple of weeks ago we then went on past balmoral to the linn of Dee - the end off the road. It's at the South East of the Cairngorms and one of the coldest (and coolest) places in Britain. While my companions (Jiurie and the Graduate) did their thing I did mine and went looking for interesting plants - and there were several that I had never seen before.

This plant is Alchemilla alpina the Alpine Lady's Mantle. This may be faintly familar to some of you because it is closely related to a well known garden perennial - the Lady's mantle - Alchemilla mollis. It is well known because it is rabbit resistant, tough (difficult to kill) and always recommended as a foliage plants for cut flower gardens.


Fortunately there was one small plant in the garden when we moved in to Tipperty right next to the meadowseet plants and close to where I began the rockery. We haven't cared for it beyond not pulling it up, and it has started to self seed around the rest of the garden. The weird thing is that it has self seeded in the back garden on the other siude of the house from the front garden (no suprise there then) and well away from the rockery. I'm wondering if it has done this vegetatively when we've been carrying gardenrefuse from front to the compost at the back but I can't see anyway that it would have got to the front of the stalag from the rockery apart from by seed.
So this year we have at least three definite new patches of Lady's mantle. I'm not sure if we should leave it as it is definitely invaisive but it is also a usefuyl plant. I think we'll leave it for the next few months /years until we decide that something else deserves the room more.

 
When I prepared the half barrels for planting I drilled large holes into the bottm. cover them with gravel and then covered the holes with gravel (granite gravel shovelled from the driveway by the spade full)and finally filled to within a few inches of the brim with general purpose compost. I now think that I probably didn't drill enough holes as several of the tubs (and a few of the pots) are absolutely covered with liverworts.
These plants are probably the most primitive plants still common today. These are probably Marchantia, a very common liverwort.
These sorts of liverworts have thick leathery leaves (okay technically they are called a thallus and not a leaf) which spread out over the soils like dark green flaps of skin. In a couple of the pots we have real doozies which are up to 10 cms across. However the ones in these particular tubs (the tubs of the Acer atropurpleum and the tub of the lily/gayfeather/carnations) there is much more competition so that the thalli are smaller and crowded. At the end of the june the hot weather caused most of these liverworts to fruit (not flower) so that exotic moonscapes and weird forest formed of their fruiting bodies. I'm no expert in liverworts so can't authoritively tell you the difference between the male antheridial heads and the female archegonial heads beyond what I can remember and what Wikipedia sparks in me.
Liverworts can reproduce asexually producing gemmae in gemmae cups also known as splash cups. When a raindrop hits the gemmae cup then a small bit of the plant (the gemmae) breaks off splashes onto the soil (or other suitable substrate hopefully) and starts to grow. It's as if everytime you took a shower then all those bits of skin washed off and started growing (except of course that skin is dead and gemmae aren't).

However the real orgy in the tubs this summer was in sexual reproduction. The flattened heads are the male.

The spikey yellow heads like starfish are the female ones.
Sperm swim through the water film on the surface of the plant, down from the flatterned head, across the thallus then up the female spike and then down the centre of the female tube. So these tubs are a weird alien landscape covered with an invisble layer of squirming sperm... makes you think.
If you want a wider variety of pictures (taken with a macro lens and not my point and click) then go along to http://www.pflanzenliebe.de/innen/innen_moose/innen_lebermoose1.html#anchor_Marchantia_polymorpha

So now I'm back just as the fruit is starting to ripen - typical - I do all thge work and the family gets all the pleasure - such is the wonders of being a dad.
Having said that Jiurie did let me have the first Raspberry of the season and it looks like it will be a bumper year. I got one nice one, and around three each that were underdone... under-ripe... still ripening.
Don't look at all the photos if you are of a nervous disposition.

Anyhow I finally discovered that the main raspberry we have (variety Heritage) is a summer-fruiter and that means that it fruits on the wood from the previous year. In other words if you hack down... sorry I mean prune.... if you prune the whole plant in Autumn/Winter then you get no raspberries the next year (because there will be no second year wood).
The wood that is growing in the centre of the bush now - soft, geen and no fruits is the wood for next year's berries. You can see some of that soft wood in the photo at the top - the canes at the front are for next year.

From two plants we are producing a fair sized shrub - the plants spread out underground along the roots/ They send up shoots about every foot or so - if it weren't for Jiurie's handiness with the Qualcast in keeping the grass shortish then the raspberries would have already taken over the front garden I suspect. There is even a suspected raspberry bush growing at the back now. I think that it may be spreading naturally by seed (more on that in a future blog).

I also bought 25 canes of Glen Clova (I think) around 2 years ago and shoved them in the bare patch close by. At the time it was baare because it was winter and the geraniums had all died down. in the spring the geraniums fought back hard so that only around 6 of the canes around the edges of the patch have survived the darkness that the geraniums had cast over them. That's around 25% of the canes worked - which is not bad when you consider that all 25 were only £10 - so 6 bushes for £10 as opposed to 1£5.99 each as the original two were.

The original two bushes were from the very first trip we made to a real garden centre (as opposed to B&Q/Homebase - which I do love - don't get me wrong) - which was Ben Reid at Countesswells in ABerdeen. I went with Jackie and/or Judy in March after we had moved in in November - can't remember if Jiurie was there that first trip and ended up spending just over £100 which was a lot at the time.
We definitely bought
a blueberry bush - never thrived but is still hanging on (or was that from Dobbies with Judy only - I think it was...)
the two raspberries - doing great;
a white buddleia - doing okay, a choisya ternata (which is supposedly a real tough plant and thrives all over Aberdeen and Ellon) which did poorly in the front so I moved it to the back where it died. Just shows that our place is tough if even a Choisya ternata can't hack it there.
a bamboo - barely sent up a leaf before giving up the ghost,
a berberis - never did nothing beyond a couple of twigs,
a lonicera bush (I think - not sure but died within the year anyway)
Doesn't sound like £100 worth so there must have been a few bulbs maybe, and some alpines/heathers...
Anyhow my memory is now playing tricks with me and I'm not sure if I ever went to Ben Reids to get any of these... or if I've ever been to Ben Reids... or if there is a Ben Reid.. or whethyer I have a garden... it's been a long day with only 6 weeks to go.

Today was a good day for transplanting and planting as it chucked it down with rain all morning - so I did - brussel sprouts - I fully expect them to be gone by the time I come back. I also lobbed in some peas - I soaked a full packet yesterday - big mistake - I only really wanted maybe a dozen or two dozen at the most and in the end was fighting to find a place for all the 100 odd seeds - if they all come up the back garden is going to look like something out of Jumanji. For some reason I had a hanging basket full of brussel sprout seedlings - I must have had a brain storm and seededthem instead of lobelias into the basket - insane - again I was struggling to find places inside the Stalag to plant the seedings and I know that the bunny mowers are going to get in there somehow - probably jump the fence on mini motorbikes - and snap them all up over the next few weeks so was it worth it? If they don't get in then the slugs and snails will - or the mice, or the cabbage whites will lay their eggs so that I'll be battling caterpillars next time I come back (if there are any plants left). As you can tell I'm not too optimistic today as I go back to Tripoli tomorrow and all is woe - I am going to miss so much again. And the funny thing is - we don't really like sprouts that much.

Our rosemary plants did not recover well from the winter -- or rather the rosemary plants out in the main garden didn't. The one sheltere in the tub on the patio did great. It is now flowering... okay it has one flower - just the one - pale blue and clearly a Labiate flower. Must be great to see a full bush flowering.

The two in the agarden are only 3 metres away fropm the one in the tub - the climate is the same but the microclimate is different and the microclimate is the deciding factor.
It is possible to grow good Rosemary this far North. For example the botanical gardens in Dundee have huge Rosemary bushes in the carpark on the shaded North side of a wall. I think that the shelter is the important p[art here.

My two ended up as twigs - well the one slightly more exposed was reduced to a twig (with a single tuft of leaves) while the one slightly more sheltered is only 3/4 twig. I have taken this second one into protective custody into the greenhouse and am wondering what to do about the prstrate Rossemary - it spreads over the ground so is less exposed to wind but more exposed to snow fall and frost... I'll probaly pot it on and take it in over winter.

The dreaded bunny mowers broke into the Stalag the last two mornings - little swines - they chomped the violets (just the flowers) and a few other plants I thought were safe. You should have seen them run when I opened the back door - two of them practically flew over the "rabbit-proof fence" like springboks chased by a cheetah - the fence is over 18 inches (45 cms) high at the place they jumped over it - 1 1/2 feet high!!!
So I dismantled the cold frames and used the old windows to reinforce the fence - the backie now looks like a junk pile or at best a run down allotment. I bet the folk up on the hill in the posh houses aren't too happy having to look at the collection of frames that are trying to shore up our crumbling defences.

Also today I had a nother bout of seed sowing. I tried some of the veg outside in the new improved Stalag - we can hope - but miost were in the greenhouse or the 15 to 20C which are going onto the steps outside - 15 to 20 is optimistic as a typical summer for Aberdeen.
to this ends I wanted to sterilise the seed trays. You may remember that I recommended a microwave to sterilize pots - 20 to 30 second blast does a whole batch. Unfortunately our microwave isn't quite big enough for a seed tray so I took the suggestion to try top use the oven - 175C (that's only around 80C so should be okay) for ten minutes.

Not recommended. The rest were done with a boiling water soak - can also cause much bending particularly on the clear lids for some reason. That meant that I had to be quite innovative at time using clear packaging and, as I always recommend, tons and tons of shrink wrap - ythat very cheap 40p a roll own brand stuff. You can get 5 to 10 trays from one roll of cheap wrap.
By the end I was out till 10:45 and could barely see the seeds I was spreading but all done now.

A lot of them say between 1 week and 2 noths at 15- 20 C followed by an equal time in a refrigerator - but that isn't going to happen. I may leave them until after winter if they don't sprout by end of August. Perhaps I need a beer fridge in the greenhouse - that would definitely help heat the place during the winter - I wonder what the cost of running a refrigerator is? 1/2 to 1 Kw per day for a modern Fridge - that's possibly as low as a £1 per week - and only use in the winter... maybe worth thinking about.
http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4912

One of the great biennials that grow wild in our garden is the Great Mullein - Verbascum thaspus - well that self seed in our garden - I assume that they are wild as I have only seen them wild in Scotland and they thrive here though we never really try to get rid of them - anywhere and everywhere so Tipperty is clearly a great habitat for them. At least I think that it is V. thapsis and not V pulverulentum - the Hoary Mullein - I must double check some time.

In the wild and where there is no check to the growth it can get up close to 6 ft tall - this is a wild one at the Burn o' Vat just outside Ballater.

Well this year I decided to go for something a bit more cultivated and tried the variety known as Banana and Custard and also the Verbascum phoencia var. and other hybrids from seeds. The phoenicia seem to have done really well with at least two flowering already (one purple, one pink - the pink is just about visible in one of the pictures below) and many plants - unfortunately the bunny mowers like the flower stems if not the leaves so I don't know if we will ever get anything more than interesting vegetation. There are now three large patches of transplants and a couple of minor ones around the place - I wonder how they will do after the disturbance.

After two weeks of hot sun it finally became overcast so I took the opportunity to split and move all the different primulas that are around the place - the drumsticks that had been raised from seeds, the polyanthus that had come from miniplugs last year and had been planted into a nursery bed for a year. There has been a mixture of the plants as time was of the essence (I ended up out side finishing the planting at 11:15 at night with the last few glimmers of day light disappearing and the sodium street lights doing weird things to my vision - it seems to make things vibrate in the peripheral visions) but I did finish it all in the end so we are hoping for some mega dispalys next year or the year after. Anyhow it looks like the bunny mowers don't like the taste of primulas as they are all still there after a few days. Phew! It doesn't look like much - maybe two metres by 1 1/2 meters (the first bed) but it was much more work than I anticipated. The other bed with the drumstick primulas on the right below is a round 2 metres by 1/2 meter. For both of these the main work was clearing the buttercups - i.e hands and knees digging out every little rooted creeper - and I bet I missed dozens. However what I do find is that it is very difficult to get motivated to weed any area which hasn't got flowers planted and so the buttercups seem to run rampant there - while it is great to get down and weed a flower bed. The flowers act as a real motivator especially when it has been so much work to raise them and to get them planted out in the first placce. That is part of the problem at the back, over the fence - get motivated to weed areas which you know will simply be covered in weeds again and there is no reason to keep them clear. (but more about that at a different time.)

The rosebud primulas that had arrived this year and which Jiurie had potted up a couple of months ago have gone into a nursery bed for a year to increase their number. The bunny mowers got into the nursery beds the day after I planted everything up and decapitated the violets (bottom right) and the heleniums (top right) had a good nibble at the Aquilegia (even though the don't like them - top left)  totaly ignored the Indian mustard - a brassica - right - too hot and peppery for them I thnk - and ignored the primulas - hip, hip hooray!

One of the seeds that succeeded was Coleus. I managed to raise a few - maybe half a dozen seeds and the most amazing thing to me was that even the seedlings showed characteristic splotches of colour.
It took ten days to get from green shoot to blotched seedling.

Then in another 7 weeks while I was away the Coleus survived in the greenhouse with loads of water (we have a great tendency to over water - many didn't survive that or to plant out too early - the nasturiums and lobelias didn't survive that in the baskets and the Aquilegia didn't survive in the garden - no hardening off) or rather one of the two did.
Ta da!
.

I then proceeded to slice off most of the side shoots, dip in rooting hormone and pot into trays as was fairly successful for the fuchsias last time. I hope that the coleus does as well. I also bought a Scaredy cat Coleus on Friday and have tried the same for cuttings - slice and dip - so let's see if that works too.

One of the flowers I missed while I was in Libya was the forst flowering of the native Orchid - Dactylorhiza ... species - I'm not entirtely certain which one I bought - probably Dactylorhiza maculata, the Heath Spotted orchid. I ought to have kept a record when I bought it from Hayley's Orchids on ebay. A great source but they are not cheap plants - mine was around £13 - for one plant!
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/hayleys-orchids
Unfortunately lots of the native orchids have pink varieties and Jiurie hadn't mastered the Macro function on the camera.

We took a walk around the area with the Dog last week and came across a muddy field that had several interesting plants in it. One was the great Muddy retriever.

The other was the Nortern Marsh orchid - very dark, spotted by Jiurie. there were around a dozen in the field hidden in the depths of the long grass. As tempting as it was to dig one up and bring it in it was never a consideration for me. It is illegal but it is also immoral as I know that if I did and transplanted it to the garden it would simply die so that would be out and out wrong. Still don't know why orchids are thought of as exotic - I mean they are local plants but still the name holds a bit of magic - an orcid - a native oprchid.

One of the seeds that did really well this year is Dusty Miller - Senecio cineraria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senecio_cineraria. Not only did it sprout well (as did around 50% of the species I tried) but it also survived the early transplantation and overly heavy watering (my fault for being away) and the reverse hardening off (out in the night and in during the day!) to be thriving when I arrived 2 weeks ago.

Now I've tried it outside - planting out - thriving in the tubs - my first conscious deliberate colour coding of foliage - the silver of the Dusty Miller should look really good against the deep red of the Acer maple - and looks like it has survived the bunny mowers for a week.

So I've now planted out the rest of the plants - trying to make a border along the path and one of the first plants in the second round of the xerophytic garden and I'm hopeful... hopeful that the slugs don't come out in force, hopeful that the rabbits haven't just been teasing me.

There are a hell of a load of them out there - six the other morning (there's one beneath the tree and another one to the right of this photo - little b....unnies.)
that did that last year with something - can't remember which - left them for a couple of days so that I thought that they were resistant so I planted out the rest - and then they just mowed their way across the lot.
This time, fingers crossed, this time....
So I tried for a week in the front - and the damn rabbits do mow the front too - they are still okay so I've planted out the rest now.

,
Well there are several plants around here which I did not expect to see again after the snow we had this winter and after the second cold snap caugtht everything in March time but they are here and I am truly amazed.

The plants I am most amazed by are in the third half-barrel from the back door and we pass them everytime into and out of the house. I guess this is why I am most amazed by these - because I was most aware of the problems they had.
This is the Dusty Miller plant and the Delta Sarah Fichsia whixch I have blogged about several times and given up on several times too. As you can see below they are both really flourishing under the new hotter winter that we have decided to implement around Aberdeen.
There will be more about Dusty Miller tomorrow so I won't labour the point here.

Another one I spotted today is the return of the dalo - a perennial favorite of mine which I thought I had finally destroyed by overcrowding them with chrysanths - I'm going to get the chrysanths out this year. The first leaves are just poking out of the tub among the flower stems.

In the front - well the hebe that was destroyed by the frost is still hanging on but, to be honest, I can't see it lasting through another winter.

And finally for this quick round up - the carantions (florist's carnations supposedly) in the front barrel have returned. I thought the slugs and snails had finally finished them off but they are popping up all over even in the tubs at the back and the pinks that have been transferred out into the the fenced off corral. Amazing how some things cling to life and never give up fighting - amazing and quite inspiring to me.

Today we had a couple of firsts thanks to the current hot weather (so hot that I have barely been outside today - great day for weeding except that you don't really want to be doing anything when it's so hot.
You miught think that I should be used to it working in Libya - I am but then I don't work outside manually in Libya - I'm in front of a computer screen for around 8 hours a day in a (poorly) air-conditioned office so I'm used to the heat but not he work in the heat.
In mo0st tropical countries you styay out of the sun as much as possible and in the middle of the day you sleep (preferably) or at least suit down in the shade. That's the way it is in Fiji, Angola, and Libya. That's part of the reason everyone wakes up so early -0 at the crack of dawn - so that you can get your work done before it gets too hot and then have a lonnnnng lunch before going out for a few more hours in the late afternoon when it starts to cool off.
However in Scotland I'm in (my) Northern European mode learnt in the winter - sleep late in the nice warm bed then work in the warmest part of the day when the caffiene starts taking effect, work through the afternoon and especially in the early evening when your mmuscles are all loosened up and it doesn't seem worth going in as you are so busy outside. Unfortunately if you wake up late, then can't work in the heat of the sun, then you don't really start work until 3 or 4 in the afternoon - a day such as today or the weekends in Tripoli - very bad - a lot of time wasted but enjoyabble...
Oh yeah - first lily of the year and first Calendula Offinalis - marigolds.

And just because it's the 4th July I'll throw in an added freebie picture for no real reason - pansies going great in the tubs here. Even the ones I grew from seed this year are doing okay (not that there are many of them).

Along the burn are a couple of notable garden escapees one a big plus the other a big minus(not from our garden - at least not in the last 3 years that is) - the Giant Hogweed and the Monkey Flower. Let's start with the Monkey Flower - something me and Jiurie are trying to encourage. This could be Mimulus guttatus (Monkey Flower) which I've just read on Wikipedia is one of the main species used for genetic research - over 1000 scientific papers on just the genetics of this one plant. I won''t be reading any -I hardly ever did read read scientific papers when I was a student (which is why I was a first-class science student at any level) - read the abstract and then photocopy the paper just in case (just in case of what I don't know as I never ended up reading the papers I think I expected my brain to assimilate the information by osmosis - just in case of... nope still can't come up with a valid rationale). Ther's a couple of asp[ects of the biology I might investigate though - they are supposed to be edible and they concentrate salt so can be used as a salt substitute/source ... I might give it a graze next time I'm down by the burn.
The Mimulus is right at the edge of the burn which is a classic place to find garden escapees - the seeds being brought down the stream and depositied when the winter and spring melt subsides. The other garden escappe is strange as it appears to be moving up stream - that is we saw it last year around the burn beyond the dual carriageway bridge 50 yds or so downstream from the end of our garden. This year there 3 or 4 have popped up along the side of our burn - the buggers. We are talking about the giant hogweed here - a noxious plant that it is illegal to plant it or to cause it to grow on your land. However we don't have to remove it - just make sure that it doesn't spread to anyone else's land. Seeing as our neighbour has it already and may have allowed it to spread onto our land then we are in the clear - I wonder if we could sue them?
"Legal implications of invasive weeds
If you have Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed or Himalayan balsam on land that you own or occupy you:
 do not need to notify anyone are not obliged to remove or treat these plants on your own land
must not allow Japanese knotweed or giant hogweed to spread onto adjacent land; the owner of that land could take legal action against
you must not plant or encourage the spread of japanese knotweed or giant hogweed; this can include moving contaminated soil from one place to another, or incorrectly handling and transporting contaminated material and plant cuttings." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed
http://www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/63107.aspx
I can see why the Victorians introduced it - it is big is good-looking (like me... joking m- you could add that it is a poisonous vegetable like me so we won't push that comparison any further). The one in the corner of the Ram field over the burn is at least three metre tall - well taller than me.
 

It is a very handsome plant butthe  poisonous hairs and the very poisoud sap can leave your skin photosensitivce or blid you if it gets in your eyes. I guess I need to go hack it down or spray with glyphosphate to protect the wife agrandkids and dogs - pity.

Here is the leaflet from the UK Govt Environmental Agency - I'm just helping to distribute this as a public service (if I paid any income tax then I would help pay their wages so maybe they should be paying me -  although I do pay my 17.5% VAT and  a load of tax on Petrol and  everything else I buy.)

 http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/giant_hogweed__899765.doc

Giant Hogweed

 

Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) was introduced to Britain in 1893 as an ornamental plant.  It escaped from gardens and now colonises many areas of wasteland and riverbanks.  It forms dense colonies that suppress the growth of native plants and grasses, leaving the banks bare of vegetation in winter and increasing the risk of erosion and recolonisation from seeds washed downstream.

 

Legislation: The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides the primary controls on the release of non-native species into the wild in Great Britain.  It is an offence under section 14(2) of the Act to ?plant or otherwise cause to grow in the wild? any plant listed in Schedule 9, Part II.  This includes Giant hogweed.

 

HEALTH HAZARD

 

The stems, edges and undersides of the leaves bear small hairs containing poisonous sap, and the slightest touch causes painful blistering and severe skin irritation. Unshaded habitats with high soil nitrate levels tend to produce greater quantities of toxins in the plant.  Contact with cut material in sunlight produces a skin reaction in almost all cases.  Blistering symptoms occur 24- 48 hours after exposure, and dense pigmentation is visible after 3 ? 5 days.  This may persist for 6 years or more.  Protective clothing must be worn. 

 

Facts and figures

 

Native range: Caucasus mountains.

 

Lifecycle: It is a perennial plant that takes up to 4 years to mature and flower, after which it dies.

 

Stem:  Green with dark-red or purple blotches.

           Hollow

           Up to 100mm across

           Up to 5m tall.

 

Leaves:  Dark green, in a rosette

               Jagged appearance and spiky at the ends

               Lower leaves up to 1.5m long.

               

Flowers:  White

               Several hundred in large umbrella-like flower heads up to 500mm 

               Across.

               June ? July.

 

New plants: Each flowerhead produces up to 50,000 seeds (approx. 10mm x 

                    7mm) that are easily dispersed by water, so the plant disperses

                    rapidly along watercourses. Seeds may remain viable for up to 

                    15 years.

 

Control:  Aim ? to kill the plant or prevent flowering.

 

Chemical control is most effective. Spraying can start as soon as the plant is about 1m high, usually in March and continue throughout the summer.  More than one application is often necessary and follow-up spraying will be required to kill seedlings in subsequent years.

 

Non-chemical control Cutting down stems with a sharp scythe before flowering will help control this plant.  Flail mowing is possible but with extreme caution due to the risk of being sprayed with sap.  Protective clothing should be worn.

 

The crown may be dug out just below ground to prevent regrowth this provides good control.

 

Grazing by cows and sheep will suppress growth but will not eradicate it.

 

It is essential to establish vegetation quickly after control measures have been applied, as dense grass sward tends to discourage seed germination.

 

Disposal: Should be taken to a landfill site or by piling on site and composting.

 

 

Useful links: 

 

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/netregs/processes/367839/?lang=_e&textonly=on

 

 

I don't know how she is doing it but the Queen seems to be copying us at Balmoral - around 40 miles inland along Royal Deeside from here.
We droive out there yesterday just to look round and spotted many doisplaya that looked similar to ours (all be it on a slightly larger scale.)
For example let's have a look at this display of Lychnis - a red fl;ower I'm not particularly fond of - but it has beeded in well and produced a nice display this year. It is contrasted with our house in the background.

Seen from the other direction it forms a nice line of red above the yellow californian poppies (though I'm starting to believe that these might be Meconopsis poppies - Welsh poppies and not the californian poppies self seeding).
Anyhow - from the other direction... Although it isn't as nice or as dfistinctive in this photo as it in real life.

Now contrast this - our display with the copycat display that Balmoral have on at the moment. Pretty well identical I think you'll agree.
Maybe she is (or should that be "She is"... the cat's mother) maybe the Queen is a follower of the blog and spotted this last year - who knows.
It was almost looking at a photo of our house and garden there were so many similarities (looking with very heavy rose-tinted glasses - so heavily tinted they were practically cranberry - cranberry sauce bottles maybe).

There seems to be some dispute over what is and isn't a Lychnis and what is and isn't a Silene - the two Genus names seem pretty interchangable over the years.
However what she didn't have at Balmoral (that I saw) was our Red Campion (Silene dioica) in the woodland garden. Jiurie seeded them two years ago with a packet of mixed woodland seeds and they have come up even better this year than last.

We had a French teacher called Mrs Campion - and our nickname for her was Campion the Wonder Goat - we were cruyal as kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Campion

So many things going on, so many things to talk about. However I need to save some things for when I'm away. Let's look at pone of the things I go tup to this morning (Before the strong sun drove me back indoors for the early afternoon. I started to weed the bog garden and it became clear that the bog garden is not very boggy. When we moved in there was a contorted willow in the front garden - a specimen plant. My wife didn't like it - I think because it reminded her of Medusa and snakes and she has a great fear of snakes (are you listening Prof. Freud) (een though therearen't any land snakes in Rotuma in the pacific - though the black and white striped sea snakes are fairly common and there are often Moray Eeels slithering around the coral pools when the tide down out on the fringe reef - but I digress) and I didn't liker it because it meant that you couldn't see my rockery from the window in the dining room (aka the games room/ the music room/ the computer room/ the small lounge - depending on what I want to call it at the moment). At the time we were poor but we were happy - the disp0lay was only around six heathers, a burgundy glow  Ajuga, a couple of house leeks and half a dozen football sized stones from the back garden but it was a rockery to me.

Anywho I dug out the willow in the first spring we were here and then laid down a double layer of pool liner (not cheap) and filled the 2 metre by 1 metre by 1 metre deep hole with hlaf of the soil then added multipurpose compost from B&Q - 6 bags of 150 litres each that's... 900 litres of soil. It is supposed to be peat in a bog garden ( I wanted to grow carnivorous plants and bog plants and they need peat and almost no nutrients in the soil) but peat is expensive plus I reasoned that the peat based compost would exhaust pretty quickly and be as good at the real thing. As it happened the carnivourous plants never did germinate either in the bog garden or any other place (but I'm still trying). I planted half a dozen Ajuga reptens (bugle) on the northern side - in the slight slope of the bog garden and they have done great. Literally from 6 B&Q plants we must have 3 or 4 square meters of plants now and continuing to grow.
 Anyhow today I realised that the bog doesn't look very boggy so I set the hose in, turned on the water and waited, and waited, and waited. Now I know that tap water shouldn't be used for a bog garden - the chlorine kills sensitive plants (more about that a different blog) but I reasoned that it would be a few days before I could get any plants to put in, during which time the sun would have boiled off the chlorine - and I might even try for a few pond plants too. So I waited some more.
While I waited I helped the Ajuga in it's battle with the creeping buttercups that keep trying the infilitrate through the patc h. Fortunately the buttercup is doing very poorly against the bugle - they have very similar lifestyles - creeping runners which root about every 6 to 9 inches.

I don't think the bugle needs much help from me but I was waiting for the bog to fill and once you are in the mood pulling up buttercups can be very satisfying. And then I noticed that the burgundy Ajuga on one corner (added 18 months ago - from the original plant in the rockery) has met the Braunherz  Ajuga described above -the dark one. I wonder which one is going to win?

In the left corner wearing burgundy, cream and green leaves is Burgundy Glow, in the right corner wearing dark bronze leaves in Braunherz. Now... Fight!. The winner will take on Caitlins Giant which is claiming the South East corner and looks a big bruiser (but it doesn't seem to have the soil grabbing and overall tenacity of the other two varieties). 

 I weeded both ot the contenders to make it fair and await the outcome . My heart says Burgubdy Glow as that was one of the very first plants I bought for the rockery in the very first month we came to Tipperty - well before the bog garden came into being, but my head says the Braunherz - it is very smoothering - it can even out fight the creeping buttercup so it must be one hell of a creeper. Oh - and I did get to see the blue flowers (though not of those at the bog garden - we have some behind the gate at the base of the fence shaded by the shrubs), vivid blue flowers against the dark leaves. Oh, and in case you were wondering - the bog garden took an hour to fill to the lip of the liner - clearly the "bog" part of Bog Garden hadn't got through to someone. An hour to fill - and five minutes to drop down again so that the water wasn't visible. I'll check again on Friday (Road trip tomorrow) and see how far down the water has gone - but it looks like there is a hole in my liner dear Lisa, dear Lisa, there's hole in my liner, dear Lisa a hole (possible from when I dug out and transplanted the kniphofia).