True Blue Flowers at the allotment /part 2 I’ve complained over and over about how I missed having the time to write and share plant stuff, but it feels so odd I’m now back at it only because we’re on quarantine, and suddenly have ALL the time I could possibly need.   This said, I thought I’d go on with the true blue flowers series I started many moons ago, so here you have two plants I bought last summer in the garden centre where I work. They are unrelated, but the colour of their flowers matched in a lovely way.  The first is Salvia patens ‘Cambridge Blue’, or gentian sage, a gorgeo ..read more

Puccinia urticata on Urtica dioicaIt’s hard to walk by banks covered in common nettle without noticing this fiery and gruesome rust fungus taking hold of and deforming the plant’s limbs. It’s best described as a species complex with a life cycle which might alternate between two hosts- in the British Isles often a nettle (U. dioica or U. urens) and a sedge (mostly Carex sp.), but its ‘sub-species’ can also be found on Aster and Ribes.      Here you can see some beautiful up-close photos of its structures ..read more

True Blue Flowers at the allotment /part 1You know I love blue flowers, but you might have not noticed how uncommon ‘true blue’ flowers actually are in nature. In the animal world, the presence of this colour is often just an optical effect caused by how light is absorbed and refracts in particular structures. In plants, however, different shades of real blue are the result of chemical changes that alter the red and purple anthocyanin pigments present in a large variety of species.This is not a common process and it has proven to be particularly challenging to replicate artificiall ..read more

Spring flowers at the allotmentSince I’ve been behind, so, so behind with sharing photos of my plot, here’s a collection of spring flowers, with more to come as they couldn’t all fit in a post. I will be writing more specifically about some of the plants I’ve grown, but for the moment I still have some work to do as I might have entered the plot into a local gardening contest to be judged soon…stay tuned ..read more

Vinca minor, ApocynaceaeLesser periwinkle was another of the groundcover species I found in the lightly shaded dry ditch running along a row of Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra ‘Italica’) edging a field. This creeping evergreen plant native to much of Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean region is a beauty in the spring and early summer months, with its propeller-shaped flowers in a particular shade of violet-blue -which has given the name to the periwinkle colour- poking through the dark, leathery foliage. Although its vigorous habit and ability to thrive in most soils can make it an inv ..read more

I can’t believe it’s already been over a month since the last time I posted, I swear I’d love to be consistent and there have been countless times I’ve taken photos looking forward to write about what I’d seen, but I’ve been so short of time, that’s just it. I’m planning on continuing with all the series I started -I’m already so behind I’d have material to write five posts a day…- and I can’t wait to finally show you more of what I’ve done with the allotment, now that a whole winter of planning and so much work are finally showing results. While I wasn’t posting I’ve also turned 29, which fee ..read more

Since the awesome John @treemigration tagged me, I feel obliged to attempt this, but I suck at these things as I’ve always failed to understand how people can decide they favour something out of anything else in the same category. I’m the kind of person who panics when presented with the question “what’s your favourite x?”. But let’s try. Favorite Plant: I….like them all :| They are all equally interesting to me, hence my obsession with them. Also, there are so many plants we still have to describe I couldn’t possibly make a choice out of an indefinite group, sorry. But today I bought a Lithod ..read more

Lamium purpureum, Lamiaceae & Anemone nemorosa, Ranuncolaceae I have already written about the delicate wood anemone before, but never about the ever so common purple dead-nettle: I generally try to single plants out for photos, but couldn’t walk away from this gorgeous combination. On the sloping side of a dry irrigation ditch, in the dappled shade of a row of tall trees, the anemone’s dissected foliage was covering the ground in a dense mat, out of which were poking the bright pink lipped flowers of the dead-nettle. The reason why this herbaceous perennial bears that common name is ..read more

Chelidonium majus, PapaveraceaeOne of the wildflowers I strongly associate with my childhood and learnt to recognise early, I hadn’t seen so much greater celandine in full bloom in years, but probably I just visit home, in Italy, too late in the summer to enjoy the full show. This herbaceous perennial from the poppy family, native to the Mediterranean, temperate Europe and Western Asia, has been known and used for its medicinal properties since antiquity, and for that reason it was introduced in many areas outside of its natural range. Although reportedly naturalised around settlements ..read more

Ajuga reptans, LamiaceaeHowever common and widespread bugle might be across Europe and the British Isles, I don’t recall ever seeing it in the wild before finding three colonies on the edge of a field near my hometown in northern Italy, and I would remember because I just love its dense racemes of blue flowers. Due to its creeping habit and small leaves, it’s definitely easy to miss unless in bloom though. It’s evergreen, forms a dense groundcover, flowers beautifully for a few months attracting wildlife and it’s extremely tolerant of full shade and moist ground, so I’ve lost count of th ..read more