February 2008
February 1st, and it's snowing in Bankfoot. Not a terrible amount of snow, but enough to delay operations in the nursery, where already the newly emerging seeds are showing signs of disgust at it not actually being spring yet, and perennials needing to be divided and potted up are glumly adhering still to the surrounding soil, pots or benches by means of a layer of ice. So instead of trying to rush the season, I'm catching up with website changes, and letting everyone know what's HOPEFULLY going to be happening when spring finally gets here.
Meanwhile, it has been a lovely winter so far. I have got past the age where winter is to be dreaded and endured, even with fortitude - getting older means realising life's too short to spend half the year aching for the other half. Especially when, as in last summer, the other half turns out to be wet, chilly and disappointing! So I have learned to love winter - the wild starlit nights when you can taste the ice in the air, the frozen mornings laced with startlingly beautiful frosty crystals, when that icy air hurts the lungs as you labour uphill. The winter surprises - delicous Winter Mushrooms (Flammulina velutipes) on cold dead wood, violent crimson of sunrise and sunset, the fight over the bantams' first egg laid soon after the passing of the midwinter solstice. And, of course, the celebrations - Yule/Christmas-tide hung with greenery and sweet-smelling rosemary, the cosy fires achieved by an afternoon of gathering winter fuel in silent secret woods, watching old films (always the best!), New Year and Burns Night when haggis neeps and tatties seem like very sensible winter food. But most of all the dark, and the wild, wonderful sky, Orion high above the horizon, the odd unidentified planet, Sirius the Dog Star twinkling with every colour it can manage, the Milky Way, shooting stars and the sheer, fantastic enormity of the universe. Occasionally, but not yet this year, the Northern Lights.....
Well, enough of that - what's new in the nursery this year? I am trying some new plants again this year, here are the ones to watch for:
Agastache nepetoides - Giant Hyssop - a tall agastache with yellow flowers
RED Welsh Onions - a variation on the common theme, but with red-flushed stems!
Tree Onions - introduced last summer, a perennial onion producing little - but powerful! - onion bulbils atop a flowering stem
Box (Buxus sempervirens) - both the green and variegated forms, ideal for hedging
Carthamus tinctorius (Saffron Thistle) - a spectacular annual thistle with big yellow flowers used in dyeing - imagine that combined with purple Milk Thistles, what an alternative to summer bedding!
Tree Spinach (Chenopodium giganteum) - an annual (I think) relative of Fat Hen, which I grew last year but too late for the catalogue and which was a great success. The young leaves and shoots are shocking pink, and produced abundantly on a plant that can get to six feet tall! It was delicious stir-fried, especially the flowering tops, and very pretty in salads.
A returning star - Echinacea 'White Swan' with white flowers
And the return of Green Fennel as well as Bronze, which I'd ignored the last few years
Ladies Bedstraw (Galium verum) - I've been asked for more dye plants, well here's one right out of Scottish tradition and a valued wild flower to boot
 HOPS - we've done Golden Hop for ages, now I hope to add the Wild Hop, a vigorous and unusual climber, to the collection
Lippia dulcis - the AZTEC SWEET HERB - about which I know little, but if it's like Stevia rebaudii, Sweet Herb of Paraguay, which I'm also hoping to propagate this year, it'll be an amazing sweet taste
Two new mints - Spanish and Swiss Mint came last year, and this year we have Variegated Buddleia Mint - green and pale gold foliage
The return - I hope with better success than last time - of Nepeta govaniana, the lemon-scented "Govan Catmint" with clouds of yellow flowers
Thalictrum flavum - the native yellow Meadow-Rue
Violas - canina and tricolor - the gorgeous native Dog Violet and Mountain Pansy
WORKSHOPS 2008
Elsewhere on this site, you'll find a full list of the workshops we are hoping to run this year - from the Beginner's Day workshops in early April to the final fungal forage of October! You can book your place by purchasing online in our shop or by emailing me at mail@plantswithpurpose.co.uk and sending a deposit. Click here to go to the right page.
OPEN DAY
When, and whether, is still up for debate on this year's open day, but IF we go ahead (and we probably will) it will most probably be in July this year.
Happy Gardening when spring comes!
Margaret Lear
Bankfoot, February 2008. |
