Kabschia Sax, Sheep and their boots, Waterperry and a miracle?

Nice mixed bag this month, I hope you enjoy it. 

Sheepish.

 Forget the Dancing Pony and Shrek's donkey and get down with this sheep.  A very nifty mover. Made from  iron and then galvanised, she makes a distinctive character grazing in the garden. This  one was supplied  by the Stour Gallery  in Shipston on Stour . 

Get Me!

Strutting it

Waterperry Gardens. 

I took a visit recently  to Waterperry Gardens  at Wheatley just south of Oxford towards the M40.
Waterperry has a long history since starting out first of all as a horticultural school for ladies which  produced  some  of our very best gardeners.Things have changed over time and rather than me tell you all about it here take a look at the link above. Take a particular look at the courses they offer, because  of the  strong connection with the art and crafts there is a  particularly wide range of  topics on offer. Waterperry is also home to Art in Action  and 25,000 people in four days obviously know something you don't if you have never been. Check out the link.
When I visited  some ten days ago the east winds were still blowing  and the weather  was still cold and not much had started to grow albeit we are well into April.

There was a lot that took my eye but this was one of the most impressive features.  It is a superbly trained rambling rose. It has always struck me as something of a self defeating exercise to train  roses, particularly climbing roses, over a pergola where the best view is had by the birds that fly over and not the person who walks under.The elaborate training of shoots in the picture below  gives the whole thing a new perspective. Sure you need some space but if you have it then this must be  one of the best ways to show off some of the more choice climbers and ramblers and it sure looks good at a time of year when roses otherwise look pretty awful.The long stems have been   splayed out and trained around, whirlpool style, to short posts in the ground.  .
Below are other examples of  careful tying in but this time to  hazel hoops  pushed into the ground. The story behind this  seems to be that after the felling  of a row of large trees the task of getting out the stumps was going to be too expensive so roses were grown over them. As time went on the stumps rotted way and  this elaborate but very effective style of pruning developed. Not so good if you don't like spiders.

Arachnophobic?

The Gardens have  one of the best museums of garden tools   I have ever come across. It seems that  if there was a task to be carried out in the garden the Victorians had  made a gadget to  make it easier.

Some of the exhibits are of a more agricultural nature such as this  display of boots for sheep. I kid you not. As you can see they were  made by Dunlop and were  to help avoid foot rot. I cant see a Welsh hill farmer having much truck with this idea at nearly three shillings a pair.The real dandy little boots at bottom right were for goats and more for those on regimental  mascot duty rather than for everyday wear.They are in a glass case which gives odd reflections. 

You might be able to read the label on this instrument but if not see if you can guess what this and the  object in the picture below were used for. 

Answers at the bottom of the blog. 

In its heyday Waterperry exhibited at shows and one of its exhibits was the display of strawberries shown in the  photograph in this picture. The picture also show  lead labels with the plant names stamped into them. The  objects on the left and right I find the most intriguing. On the right is a  cane with a boxwood  head which was used for tapping  terracotta plant pots - no plastic in those days-  to see if they needed watering. If they gave out a dull  sound they were moist enough but  if they  gave out a ring then they were dry and needed watering. The long cane handle meant you could reach to the back of the bench.

The  curious bunch  of green painted  twigs had a very specific use. Gathered  through the winter they were selected  for evenness of thickness  and length  and each had to have a fork at the top. These were painted green and kept for the great strawberry display. They would be pushed discreetly under the strawberry plant and the  'trusses' of strawberries laid over the  forked end to show them off to their very best.    

 Saxifrages 

Another treat tucked away in the garden is the national collection of Kabschia Saxifrages. This is a group of species whose name commemorates Willhelm  Kabsch  ( 1835 - 64) who unfortunately, at a young age, fell to his death  from a cliff while studying phytogeography (concerning the distribution of plants)  in the Alps.

 In their  native habitat plants from dry, high altitudes are designed to cope with  the cold but they  don't experience the cold wet weather we get here in the UK so to help them keep dry and so prevent them rotting they are grown under cover to keep off the rain.

The plants are displayed on raised beds with large pieces of  porous, free draining  tufa to help mimic their native terrain. Tufa is often though of as volcanic rock but is in fact not a rock at all and is formed by water containing a lot of  dissolved limestone which it deposits on  organic matter  and other debris in the water. deposits of limestone laid down on. Limestone coated  leaves can be seen  in the picture below. The limestone in the tufa matches the limestone conditions found in many parts of the Alps and Pyrenees.

Its no good hiding in the bushes behind the bench -  we can see you. 

First class molehills at Waterperry. 

Some very old  cordon apples at Waterperry. You would almost never mind if they never produced a  fruit they look so good.


Lichen.
We did lichen a couple of issues back  but I have since found a very useful site to help you identify some of them. It was particularly aimed at lichens found in old orchards but I am sure it has a  more general use. The site is at  OPAL which stands for OPen Air Laboratory and  is to encourage  everyone to  look out for and study  all things in their  local  natural world.  It is first rate.  

Box Root Pruning
 You may have bought Box plants, the shaped ones in  a pot some twelve inches or so across, expecting them to  be well established  and rooted into the compost  but having knocked  them out of their pots  you realise they are not rooted into the compost at all and in fact the bottom half of the pot is  new compost and the  root ball  is just sitting on it . This is something between a root balled, open ground plant and a containerised   one. When I first came across this  I was a bit miffed thinking that I had been done, a bit like  you do when you buy a potted rose plant in late winter  or early spring  and  tip it out of its pot  and all the compost falls off the two or there fangy roots because  it is a bare root plant that was  probably potted only  a fortnight before. However  don't despair with your  box plant  it is a  recognised way of  producing potted box and if left in the pot they will root into that fresh compost and if planted  in the ground they will root out just the same. Because they have been field grown  they are well nourished  and you  get a very good looking plant.  I have planted  very many and they  have all survived. That is not to say they have  all survived Box Blight and three I planted only last year came down with the blight and I had to dig them out and burn them. One of the things I noticed when I planted them was that to get them into their  pots some fairly  thick roots had been cut through which was a bit worrying.  But when I dug them up I was  surprised to see just how much  new root had been made on those  cut ends  and it gave me greater faith in recent research which showed with the species trialled that when planting plants where the roots are running round the pot rather  than trying to tease them out it is better to  cut into the roots with secateurs  which helps  produce new roots  from the cut ends which  then  grow out into the surrounding soil. You can see how much root is produced in just a season  from  the pictures of these box roots.

A  severed root the thickness of your forefinger had sprouted a healthy thicket of new roots  when dug up thirteen months after  planting 

 If you have to move a shrub in the garden mak sure any thick roots that have to be cut through are cut cleanly  to help prevent disease and die back and to encourage the formation of new roots.

Most of the roots that had to be cut originally to get the plant into the pot  produced masses of  new roots but the one at the  bottom of the picture  decided not to.  

A dead ringer?
We are told all our gardening life that if you strip the bark off a plant then you have removed all the tissue that conducts the sap around the plant and it will die.
So when I discovered this small Acer palmatum with  the damage you can see below I was  a bit worried. The bark had been nibbled of by some small creature and as you can see from both pictures it is right round the  trunk. You can also see where the  cambium has healed  the edge  that has been nibbled so this   has been damaged for some time  and ,  hand on heart, this plant lives quite happily like this  and apart from  the usual bit of dieback suffered by Acer palmatum varieties  it is  a healthy plant. I am confounded . Is it a blinkin' miracle ? Let me know.

It wasn't me who left the tree tie on too long , honest. 

Got it covered.

The covers of the  Winter and Spring  issues of Hortus show  before and after of one of my favourite  small tulip bulbs Tulip batalini 'Bronze Charm'. Glorious as  downy skinned , tufted bulbs  and  even  more glorious 

as    bronze tinted , soft yellow  flowers. I have found T. batalini to be very easy to grow, a very reliable  flowerer and utterly charming. Give it a go.

P.S. You can read  a piece by me in  both  issues.

Bits and Bobs
Yer godda laff!
We have all seen it. A road sign  modified  by some wag with a spray can; No Entry signs turned into to Ban the Bomb signs (Those were the days), thirty speed limits  made into eighty  speed limits,  the sign for a  bumpy road given nipples and letters of  place names sprayed out to turn them into something rude. Today I was driving  near  to Lower and Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds when  I came across an adulterated sign that  made me chuckle as I drove by.  Part of the joy of it was that it had obviously been thought through  because this was no hastily squirted  aerosol  job  but a neatly cut piece of white adhesive  tape placed very neatly over the capital S on the sign to The Slaughters.

Another witty sign  was on the road outside a golf club  not too far from Devizes . It was in the the style of  those brown tourist  signs if I remember  right. It said  Golf Club 100 yds  and under the the 100 yds. was, in small writing, Par 3. Much better in the seeing than in the telling  but it was thoughtful of  someone on the Sign Committee to think to offer a little cheer to us passers by.

THE ANSWERS

The top picture is of a device for bunching daffodils in bud and the picture below it is for bunching daffodils  in flower. Brill!

That's all folks. 

  

Bourton House Topiary - before and after. Makita memory shtick. Will Gould in Yucatan

This has turned into another bumper  issue. Don't forget new posts are announced on twitter @pwhorticulture and just to let you know that I am leading a Cotswold garden tour this July as part of  Cotswold Walks 2013 programme and it takes in Bourton House which ties in very nicely with  this post's main feature. Be nice to see you there.

Right, here we go..........

I worked  as head gardener at Bourton House for eighteen years. As head gardeners will know get the right team and the job can be the best job ever.  At Bourton we had various gardeners come and go but for a period I had what I have always thought of as my dream team, a golden era! They were two people who had, in different ways, a huge enthusiasm and energy for the garden. There was an eagerness to learn and a genuine excitement when say something new would flower for the first time - they were a real pleasure to work with. They were  Heather Balhatchet nee Price and Will Gould. Will has contributed below to this blog with a piece on his trip to Yucatan.
One criteria for the professional garden photographers who came to the garden regularly was that they had to take a picture of the garden team for our records.The best  picture of them all was the one below taken by Marie O'Hara. I worked with Marie on several occasions and she had imagination, patience, great technical skill and always a great sympathy for the subject.

I am proud to present  my dream team

...

It is all too often the case that designers create a  garden  and then leave it in the 'safe' hands of the client and either  never see it again or see it again a few years later only to find that the no doubt well meaning  meddling of an inexperienced  gardener or the client themselves  has  diluted  their intention to the point where they want to disclaim ownership of the design. It is usually the planting that has been messed with or been badly maintained rather than changes to the basic structure of the garden.

At Bourton I had been in the fortunate position of being able to originate a project from a very elemental start - rooting the cuttings - then nurture it for a number  of years and  then leave it only  to come back many years later to a mature planting that except for minor changes has turned  out exactly as I hoped it would. The project had been to create an architectural feature of box and yew with  an  ironwork centre piece in front of the house.

.   We raised several hundred  box cuttings in cold frames.  Plans were drawn and work began. The topiary garden was developed in front of the house. We dug up the large expanse of gravel covering the space where originally carriages would have  drawn up  to the main entrance. A year or two earlier we had created a much smaller box garden which you can see was left in place to be cannibalised once the larger area of ground was prepared.

 First of all the pattern was marked out with small flower pots to see if it was going to work before  planting began. It all looked so skinny back then. The short sections of box were waiting to grow into a chunkier green version of the terracotta rope edging much loved by the Victorians.The thin wedges were box, the flanking columns - very small here- were yew and the lollipops were Portugal laurel. If I remember correctly the diagonals on the wall were Pyracantha. The picture was taken in spring with the Tulipa kaufmanniana waiting  for some sunshine before they  open their faces to the sky.   

Cuddly serpents.

Is it real?  

We had made a rod for our own backs when it came to clipping time.The  box has been expertly  and lovingly clipped by subsequent garden teams to superb effect.The topiary was established before Box Blight reared its ugly head in 1994 which has been an advantage and  scrupulous attention to hygiene and continual  vigilance has so far kept box blight  at bay. (There is a hint of a pun there)

An earlier 'box' project meant tackling the old rose garden. These images are from old slides and lack a bit of sharpness. Those with a nostalgic hankering  for the slightly fuzzier life of times gone by  might feel  more comfortable with  them.   

Hundreds of cuttings struck in the cold frames were grown on  in the reshaped rose garden. 

  

Early days and still some gaps but it is starting to shape up .

The impressive lattice basket  is cast Victorian concrete  and was  made for the Great  Exhibition of  1851

Getting there, and the old Indian swastika pattern  is becoming obvious. If you visit the garden  and you  are a keen observer you will notice all the swastikas swirl in one direction  except one. I did  not notice the mistake I had made when setting out the pattern until several years after planting. 

Whoa! Greens are good for you! 

Hair cut Sir?

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Yucatan.

 I would like to introduce you to Will Gould   It is hard to know where to start when describing Will and perhaps a simple list is the easiest way. He is gardener, poet, artist, teacher, enthuser, traveller, motorbiker and all round good guy.       Follow him on twitter  @green_ gould  

   ''Paul asked me if I'd like to post on his blog and since I've recently travelled  to Mexico to escape the January blues, I thought I'd pass on a few notes:

            I flew to the Yucatan, the home of the Mayan civilisation. The peninsula is the tail of Mexico's eastward curl into the Gulf. Bordering jungly Guatemala and Belize to the south, the soil is drier and the air less humid. Temperatures rarely drop below 20 degrees C and peak from 28 in winter to 35 in summer. The wet season from May to October is also the hottest. When I was there in January trees were losing their leaves in preparation for the dry months.  

            It sounds like good growing country but what prevents bountiful tropical jungle is the fact that the whole peninsula is a flat sheet of porous limestone with virtually no surface water. Only the larger forest trees can reach down to the groundwater which can be seen at Cenotes, where weaknesses in the limestone have eroded sufficiently to collapse, revealing bottomless pools of freshwater.''

Tradescantia spathacea  and Ficus dipping their toes:

           

The result of the climate is low scrubby forest that flourishes in the wet then lies dormant and mostly leafless through the dry months.

 Like much of the culture in Latin America, the flora today is one of importation, selection and  survival. Above the fading greens of January, bright yellow interloper Cochlospermum religiosum  (Silk Cotton Tree) pops out  Fremontedendron-like butter cups on bare 'winter' branches.

Along colonial town streets, African tulip tree Spathodea campanulata's waxy orange flowers drop daily on to pavements. Caesalpinia pulcherrima  and 10 ft Brugmansias light up dusty front yards along with Orchids and Bromeliads in typically nonchalant displays. In the corners of car parks, native cotton (Gossypium) and mimosa grows alongside escaped Ricinus. Roadside verges - usually the hotbeds of aliens were largely a tangle of native Ipomoea purples, yellow Bidens and pure red Stachytarpeta, false vervain or snakeweed:

 Just as the present culture and flora is a rich composite, the variety of present day Mexican food is largely the result of imports such as rice, wheat, pigs, chickens and cattle. These are combined with complex spices which were developed to enhance a bland staple diet.

            Traditionally the Mayans grew maize and beans through the wet season, planting crops at the spring equinox and harvesting at the autumn one. Practicing slash and burn methods, they would clear forest , grow for 2 years then leave for 8 to return fertility before the next cycle.  The cycle of rains and maize was so important to them that they held the belief that the gods first made the corn and then fashioned humans from cornmeal. Carvings at ceremonial sites show decapitated warriors sprouting corn from their necks, ironically it is thought that it was the winners of a ceremonial ball game who were given this privilege.

You could say growing maize was in their blood:

Helianthus microcephalus at the roadside:




Recently cleared forest and last years Maize:

The Mayans built pyramids whose height was determined by the forest canopy. At dawn on the equinoxes, those at the top needed to be able to see the approaching sun 'walking' towards them from the horizon. By building their own  mountains, the structures became the highest points on the entire peninsula.

Many thanks Will.

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Crown Gall

Here's an ugly looking piece of stuff. Dave Feaver, a lecturer at Pershore College  brought it in to show the RHS group at our Saturday class. It is Crown Gall  on a  plant of Photinia. Galls can be caused by a range of organisms including fungi, eelworms and insects but this one is caused by bacteria. Crown gall  does not necessarily kill the plant but can certainly weaken it. The bacteria does not penetrate the  root cells but inhabits the space between the cells  and causes them to proliferate rapidly. It can affect both herbaceous and woody plants. There is not any practical control  particularly as it is only usually noticed when  the plant  starts to suffer and is dug up.  Club Root, which also causes swelling and distortion  of  roots  is a gall disorder of members of the Cabbage (Brassica) family and  is caused by a slime fungus. It can be controlled top some extent by raising the pH of the soil. Infected soil should not be used for Brassica  crops for seven or eight years  at least. 

All galls are not as ugly as this, take a look at more appealing  galls in 'Britain's Plant Galls' by Michael Chinery ( Wild Guides Ltd. ) and a lovely old book ' The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Plant Galls' by Arnold Darlington (Blandford)  my edition is dated 1968  and it is long out of print  but there are some available on

Amazon

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Makita memory shtick

 I am not in the thrall of  Makita and no money has exchanged hands ( Yet. Makita?) but I could not resist posting this picture of the memory stick I was given after a presentation of their landscape and grounds maintenance equipment. (you have to pull off the front of the miniature planer to get to the bit you push into your pc.) It's slightly soft and rubbery and its so cute.

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Scary-fication

I have figured out why  lawn scarification is so called - it is because  when you have  scarified the grass  the resulting look is an absolutely 'scary' mess. Here Barney is carrying out the sterling work on a very dreary day. 

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Giraffe sticks

I turned back a pile of  garden rubbish to start a fire to find these sticks underneath  that had had their bark  gnawed by either mice or voles or shrews. I am sure there is someone out there that  is an expert on UK gnaw marks who can tell me which critter it was. 

Bits and Bobs.



There has been a series on   BBC TV  here in the UK   called 'The  Story of Music' by Howard Goodall which for me was an immense success. And while not wanting to trivialise it in any way at all one of the  things that sticks in my memory is the bit about Lurpak butter.  If you know the product you will know it has a silver wrapper with  the name Lurpak on it, of course, and above the name is what I have always thought of as a  rather quaint bit of  embellishing artwork. However it turns out that the curly bit of the logo with  a bossed plate on the end is in fact a representation of an early musical wind instrument the Lur.  Hence Lurpak. It is a Viking instrument played in Norway since a very long time ago.
 I hear shouts of 'little things please little minds'  and so they do but I don't care one tiny bit.

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I have ruined two laptop keyboards  drooling over the site Paradis Express. It is a heavenly expression of all things beautiful in the garden. It is run by Delphine who gardens thirty or so kilometres north of Paris. Plunge into this site and you will never want to come out.

Another entertaining blog is that of the tatooed gardener. Lots of good info, good humour and if you are of a heavy metal bent lots of good music.
Another blog I read is that of Helen O'Donnell who gardens in Vermont USA. Helen has some great  pictures on her site and it is a very good read. She also seems to  have visited more gardens in the UK than I have.

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In the  last issue we  had all manner of characters  getting together to create a rural idyll  and I suggested  Sandy Shaw should gather a few people about her to create a seaside scene. Here are a few of her recruits so far.

Michael Fish
Cliff Richard
The Lighthouse family
George Segal
Brian Ferry
David Harbour
Captain Haddock
Beach Boys
Desmond  Deckchair and the Aces
Piers  Brosnan
Jane Shrimpton
Jackson Pollock

Cod Almighty

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It's that  time of year when you start looking out  for frog  spawn and I  found  this  in  the murky depths of my .............

...................mug of  chicken noodle soup!

Lichen or lichen? Face of Jesus.Wildlife folklore, Earth Star,

Rather than tag it on the end I want to start with Any Other Business. I am  gradually getting to grips with the technology of blogging but I have noticed that depending on which browser you use e.g. Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari and the like, you might get a different presentation of the blog site. Some fonts don't translate from one  service to another, for example  my  AC/DC  font was okay on I.E. but failed on Chrome. Also on  the mobile version the background image scrolls with the text making it impossible to  read parts of it. Oh what woe! At the moment I have no idea how to overcome these problems but I am working on them. 
     To  post a comment use the button that says 'Post a comment' at the very bottom of the last page of each blog. Don't use the Comments button at  the top right of the page. That is to subscribe to a comments feed and is unduly complicated unless you are desperate to do it. I haven't figured how to remove it yet. 
     The pictures are all mine unless otherwise shown and copyright applies so please ask if you want to use any of them.  

My new postings  are  announced on twitter  @pwhorticulture 

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Lichen or Lichen?

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang, - 'You  like  tomayto I like tomarta, you like potayto and I like  potarta, tomayto, tomarta, potayto, patarta , oh lets call the whole thing off...........'  I sang, -  'You say Heushera , I say Heuchera, you  say Weigelia ,I say Weigela, I say Clemaytis  you  say  CLEMatis, you  call it lichen and I call it liken, let's call the whole thing off. ' We'll leave the Heuchera , Weigela, and Clematis thing for another day and just deal with the lichen or liken issue. I looked it up in the dictionary to check out the phonetic  pronunciation and  it says,  '' Pronounced lie-ken ( it was  written out in those  funny phonetic symbols  but they don't come out well in this font  and who actually understands them?)  but  sometimes said  lichen as  in kitchen.''  So there you have it, you can please yourself. Hooray. Well not quite. Lichen comes from Greek and I am not a Greek scholar but I think they would say a hard ch ( Kick)  rather than a soft ch ( Chin).
.

Whatever you call them they are quite a piece of  something. I say something because they are not plants nor are they animals but a combination of two separate organisms, a fungus and either an algae or sometimes  a  cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are blue-green bacteria which can make energy from sunlight just like the algae.The fungus and its symbiotic  partner get by  mostly  by the algae or bacteria providing energy  garnered from the sun  and the fungus helps by retaining water and providing a bigger area for capturing nutrients. The relationship is  complex and that explanation is a big over simplification.

This symbiosis allows them to occupy environmental niches that they could not survive in as separate entities. The algae can live without the fungus but the fungus cannot live without the algae. It has always puzzled me how such a mutually reliant existence allows them to reproduce when you have  two different organisms involved but operating as one. It turns out that they  can spread by vegetative means which means bits come off and establish themselves in a new location but they also produce a type of spore which contains a bit of both the algae and the fungus and this is dispersed by the wind. Where there is a need evolution invariably finds a way.

Lichens can withstand considerable desiccation which allows them to colonise  a wide range of often inhospitable environments. The pictures below show them on wood, asbestos, and painted metal which are not particularly   inhospitable  but certainly varied and providing very little nutrition.  .

     This is not meant to be a scientific look at lichens because there are many and varied variations  on the lichen theme  and their life history can be complex. I am more  concerned by the beauty of their shape and colour. Take a look at the British Lichen Society  website for comprehensive information.  

Lichens of many shapes and textures were clinging to an apple tree I pruned recently

The pictures below are all taken within a yard or two of each other and  I would not be surprised if most times when you are outdoors  that along with that rat we are always only a few feet away from you are not that far from a lichen. They are sensitive to air pollution so town dwellers might  have to look a bit harder. 

I live in Potter's Lane and this sign is typical of many where the sign cleaner  never gets - thankfully.  

It would be  perfect if the name of this lichen began with S........

.....and this one began with P.
The  spattered, tiny, coral-like fragments on this P were finely detailed and sublime. 

I borrowed this T from the sign opposite because the lichens were  better than  on the T above.

Lichen on stone wall 1

Lichen on stone wall 2

      Lichen on stone wall 3

Lichens on wooden bench 1

Lichens on wooden bench 2 

Lichen on asbestos shed. 1 (Can you spot the face of Jesus?)

Lichen on asbestos shed 2 or is it a picture of the cosmos or is it just a boring picture? You decide.

I sometime get asked to look at 'diseased' shrubs to advise on what can be done only to  find that the plant in question is just covered in lichens. It is usually on old shrubs where the lichen has had time  to get well established. The lichen does not penetrate the plants and does no harm. This also applies to ivy on trees. The ivy takes nothing from the tree but does make branches heavier and  more likely to break off in high winds or when laden with snow.

Lichen on this small, round leaved deciduous Lilac, Syringa meyeri var spontanea 'Palibin'  gives it a frosted look.

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Earth Star

Here's a curious little fellow.  It is an earth star fungus and more specifically the Arched Earth Star and more scientifically Geastrum fornicatum. Ge = earth as in geology, astrum = star as in Per ardua ad astra and fornicatum  as in, well, what are you expecting?  It means arched or vaulted.  Wikipedia  tells us  about fornication - 'It is a common belief that the origin of the word derives from Latin. The word fornix means "an archway" or "vault" and it became a common euphemism for a brothel as prostitutes could be solicited in the vaults beneath Rome. More directly, fornicatio means "done in the archway," perhaps a reference to prostitution.' Well, well, well, the things you learn from a lowly fungus.  

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Wildlife folklore 

I recently asked a friend,Phill Clayton, if he fancied  contributing  to this blog. He did and here it is below.
Phill is an accomplished wildlife photographer and very knowledgeable naturalist. He has logged several species of wildlife never before recorded in South Warwickshire and built up a comprehensive picture library of the wildlife of the local area through birds, flowers and insects. He is a keen conservationist and one of the main movers in the Stour Valley Wildlife Action Group . Much of his work can be seen on their website. (The group also has a Facebook page.) It is a valuable resource for those interested in the well being of their countryside. 
Take it away Phill. 

''After reading the various posts I thought, having an interest in the natural world, I would like to add a slant in that direction!

A slant perhaps at a tangent  that delves  more  into folklore and myth. Why? Because we have learned much about the natural world over the centuries culminating in some fantastic video footage of species' life cycles that are even stranger than fiction. However, this interest lies in how our ancestors tried to make sense of the living things around them, within the constraints of their times! Probably the most familiar of our wildlife, are the birds we see around our gardens and local countryside!

We can attempt to see these through the eyes of the ancients who wrote about them with, in some cases, great detail.

When Christ was crucified it is said that the Crossbill drew out the nails to release Christ and this is how it has a deformed bill, The red markings are  the blood of Christ from their efforts to free him. Swallows it was believed, flew off with the nails so they couldn't be  used again! It was the Sparrow that followed them and brought them back and for punishment had their legs fixed together invisibly so now they can only hop and never run again. Thus, it was a sin to kill the swallow and some believed that if a farmer does this  his cows will yield blood instead of milk!

(Religion was of course one of the great constraints of these times!)

    Nisus, the King of Megara, had a daughter called Scylla who for the love of Minos betrayed her father and country. On realising her betrayal she  threw herself into the sea in despair and was changed into a lark. This doomed her to be pursued forever by her father who changed into a hawk……….The species name for the sparrow hawk is Accipiter nisus!

    The Cuckoo or Gowk, has been the subject of much folklore. Where did it go in winter, where did it nest, why did it change its song, why did it eat other birds eggs? Why did grasshoppers hatch from its spittle?

The attempts to answer all of these conundrums were quite varied, some believed that cuckoos turned into hawks in the winter (The barred breast of the cuckoo is quite Sparrow hawk-like!). Others believed it hibernated in this country, either in the mud at the bottom of ponds, or would lose its feathers and hide in the hollows in trees and looked like an owl. (Tawny owls nest early in hollows so finding young owlets could explain this!) It was also thought that the cuckoo arrived here on the backs of Kites as their flight was poor! (This probably came about as a coincidence in arrival time!) Some believed a Cuckoo could not sing until it had eaten the egg of a small bird. (Cuckoos do take birds eggs, this is to make room in the nest of the host parents for its own egg, so a thread of truth!) The tiny soft bodied Frog-hopper larvae that secrete the protective foamy substance we know as Cuckoo spit are most evident in the months the Cuckoo sings so again it seems the two must be associated by pure coincidence!

But why did these stories come about?

Explaining why a bird like the cuckoo, (which would have been very common back then!) made itself so obviously present within the few months of summer and then apparently disappearing completely, must have been quite important. For a better or wise person having to explain to a lesser being  that you didn't know the answer would never do! So explanations were created.

I guess by now us commoners should be used to the tales we  have been  spun by our peers ever since!''           

Phill. 

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Face of Jesus. 

We've all seen it haven't we?  Pull a slice of toast out of the toaster  and there it is the face of Jesus, spill milk on the table and there it is again; just about to take a sip and there it is, the face of Jesus, in the froth of our pint of Guinness. Well, I was knocking apart an old pallet the other day and there it was, the face of Jesus, but what I hadn't realised was that he smoked. 

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Winter wonders.

This is one of the few variegated plants I get excited by. I grow it alongside the path to the house to cheer me as I go by. It is reliable and  bright and clean  throughout the year but seems particularly so  in the winter  when it shines out against dark wet earth and bedraggled  plant debris. It even looks good through the snow. Yucca filamentosa 'Golden Sword', try it. 

Here are two rather poor pictures of  a plant I have overlooked  for much of my gardening life. Leucojum vernum  This  plant  has been  flowering  from  mid to late January through February in the UK Midlands.  Snowdrops fit in well with winter, they look cold with their pure white flowers and blue tinted foliage but this plant has the luxuriance of a summer flowering  bulb.The foliage is dense and a rich dark green  and the white flowers, held well above the leaves, are perked up with bright yellow anthers and petals with yellowy green tips. It is called the Spring Snowflake but it is too early and far too warm to be called either Spring or Snowflake  Don't miss out on it like I have all these years, track one down in readiness for next winter.    

Flowering it's head off in early February Cornus mas must rate only just behind Hammamelis, Witch Hazel, but ahead  of most everything else for  winter colour. It is a deciduous, hardy, large shrub/small tree that tolerates a wide range of conditions and if you are desperate enough you can make jelly from its berries though it needs a warm spot  to fruit regularly.

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It is that time of the year when everyone writes about Hellebores. Here's my contribution. This is a fabulously dark selection from Ashwoods Nurseries Not only are the flowers so very dark but the new foliage is a rich chocolate purple. It is exquisite.  

 There is a lesson to be learned in this  picture.  Because we had a great heap of  them I used felled tree chippings as a mulch. It certainly works well as a weed suppressant and helps retain soil moisture in this free draining sandy soil but it can be distracting when you want to appreciate  some of the smaller plants growing through it. Once the plants are up and  their own foliage acts as a background to their flowers it is fine but in early spring  when the likes of snowdrops, hellebores, species tulips and Cyclamen coum are doing their best to be seen they can be lost against the jumble of  shapes  and colours of the mulch. It will take several seasons before  the mulch  breaks down sufficiently for its colour to darken. 
Another lesson is that when you cut back your old hellebore leaves in winter try not to leave stubby bits of stem showing;it spoils the effect.( I am in a quandary, should that be effect or affect? Help me out English scholars.)  

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Bits and Bobs

Young engineers overheard at Job Centre.... 'Drilling is boring'....... 'I went for a job as a lathe operator. I got turned down.'

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In the UK there are several genera of Woodlice, those small ancient looking insects that creep around in damp and shady places. One of the genera is Armadillidium which is a great name to pronounce, but, better still, they are classified in the section  Armadillidiidae - is that an insect or a traditional Irish fiddle tune?

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President Carter, Gracie Fields, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Charlotte Church, Jenny Meadows, Tim Shepherd, Helen Brook, Billy Twelvetrees, Joan Rivers, Stonewall Jackson, John Farmer, Jim Dale and Giant Haystacks all stand shoulder to shoulder to create a rural idyll. 

Anyone else we should include?

Sandy Shaw could start a seaside scene.

THE END