A Nice Green Leaf: Plant of the Week

I don't even have a crap old pun for this posting: I just have Camellia japonica, top performer. This one was flowering at Kew, with that strange combination of separate white and pink flowers you sometimes get on single plants of this species. Down a side path, it was glossily perfect, showing off in that wonderfully understated way. 

Camellias have an odd way of growing on the bush, sprouting off at odd angles - which means that sometimes you don't necessarily get to see the flowers at their best. You can't appreciate the blooms on mass - you just have to find a good one and then gawp at it, delighted.

If you really want to study them, you might be better off cutting the flowers and putting a couple in a vase. Though not at Kew Gardens, please.

According to one website I found, red camellias symbolise inherent worth, whereas white ones
stand for loveliness. So I've gone for surface over substance, sadly. If I was going to buy one, I would google Burncoose, a nursery in Cornwall who always win prizes at the RHS and who have a great selection.

If you live anywhere West, North-West or Scots, you may be totally sick of Camellias by now, but for us in the East they are a grand treat.

A Nice Green Leaf: Plant of the Week

I don't even have a crap old pun for this posting: I just have Camellia japonica, top performer. This one was flowering at Kew, with that strange combination of separate white and pink flowers you sometimes get on single plants of this species. Down a side path, it was glossily perfect, showing off in that wonderfully understated way. 

Camellias have an odd way of growing on the bush, sprouting off at odd angles - which means that sometimes you don't necessarily get to see the flowers at their best. You can't appreciate the blooms on mass - you just have to find a good one and then gawp at it, delighted.

If you really want to study them, you might be better off cutting the flowers and putting a couple in a vase. Though not at Kew Gardens, please.

According to one website I found, red camellias symbolise inherent worth, whereas white ones
stand for loveliness. So I've gone for surface over substance, sadly. If I was going to buy one, I would google Burncoose, a nursery in Cornwall who always win prizes at the RHS and who have a great selection.

If you live anywhere West, North-West or Scots, you may be totally sick of Camellias by now, but for us in the East they are a grand treat.

Gardening: A Nice Green Leaf - Never bud it so good

To you, this probably looks like a bit of old stick. To me, it's a major horticultural achievement. Let me transcribe the conversation I just had OUT LOUD with the buds on my wisteria:

Me (disappointed): "Aw, you are just gonna to be leaves, aren't you?"

(Carries on hopefully looking for evidence to the contrary, as on all other days so far this April.)

Me (shrieking): "Wow!!!! You're not going to! You're going to be FLOWERS!"

bI brutally pruned my wisteria in August of last year, as it began an onslaught on my roofing tiles. I dutifully followed RHS instructions, pruning the arm-long August whips down to hand-long twigs in February, leaving exactly the specified amount of buds on each branch.

But as spring started to arrive I began to doubt my handiwork. At my sister's, the wisteria is covered in beautiful buds, clearly flowers about to open, already tinged with a little lilac colouring. Meanwhile mine were still brown and dormant.

I'd pretty much convinced myself that the hard "pruning" (well, saws did become involved) had meant the plant needed a year to recover. Only today did I finally spot the evidence that I had done the right thing after all. One bud has now opened up enough for me to see with my own
eyes that they are flowers. And others aren't far behind.

I think this must be what my friend was describing when she said "It's great for the doctor to hear the baby's heartbeat, but seeing it moving for yourself on the scan is unbeatable." All I can say is, another 10/10 score for the amazing RHS website.

A Nice Green Leaf: Zombie plant of the week

Peonies are supposed to be amongst the prettiest of early summer flowers. But earlier on in the year when their buds are just starting to uncurl from the soil, they look more like zombie hands reaching up from out of a grave to try and grab you.

Or is it just me?

A Nice Green Leaf: Valley of the Tree-Planters

I've discovered a new gardening anthem! Well not really new. This is "I'll Plant My Own Tree", sung in a 1970s tv appearance by the legendary Lena Horne. It's a song that Dory Previn originally wrote in 1967 for the film of "Valley of the Dolls". The lyrics have a fairly warped Dory Previn sense of humour: "I'll plant my own tree, and I'll make it grow/ My tree will not be, just one in a row." I think it's all in the delivery...

And Horne certainly delivers it. Her performance is wonderful, in a set which looks like it may have itself seen a few Zombie Plants in its time. Sing it next time you're planting a tree! I'll come round and play bongoes!

A Nice Green Leaf: The Pansy Project

It's not often that I find my gardening news on Facebook, but in this case the story was too interesting to miss. In a queer political twist on the idea of guerilla gardening, Paul Harfleet's Pansy Project plants pansies at the site of homophobic attacks. 

Looking at the photos, I waver between wanting to laugh at the humour with which Harfleet demolishes all sense of the ranked lines of pansies in public parks planting (see his straight line bisecting the park at Homotopia, Liverpool) and feeling really sad about the abuse that the work is actually addressing.

As a result, I love the idea: it's simple, powerful and serious, but has this touch of plaintive lightness with those brightly-coloured blooms.

Harfleet acknowledges the fact that sometimes the pansies
don't survive. Oftentimes, though, they do, and go on to seed
themselves. They are such happy looking little flowers, with what
almost looks like a face. Sweetly smiling, despite being planted in hostile places, their brave, sturdy little way of growing adds loads to the strength of the idea.


(Photo from the Pansy Project)

A Nice Green Leaf: Adam and Eve found 'safe and well'

Always assumed to have died sometime around 3000 BC, our oldest ancestors Adam and Eve made a surprising reappearance today in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington. Two community police officers were called to the scene at around 2am this morning after a worried pensioner reported some "tree-huggers" were active in the area.

God was said to be "surprised, but in a nice way". A police insider told us "they just seem to have been very relieved there were no snakes in the area."

While now old enough to qualify for their Freedom Passes, Adam and Eve say they still want to "give something back to the trees", and are currently advertising Trees for Cities' annual Treeathlon, taking place this year on the 20th September.

For those energetic types who can train in three different sports at once whilst remaining popular enough to actually get sponsorship, registration opens a week today. Seriously.