Gardeners' Bloom Day - May

For all of this spring, Gardeners' Bloom Day has come and gone each month and I've not been there. But then I've not been there at all much recently - work commitments and then family problems have meant that blogging has been very low priority for a while. But it's the end of the year - the academic year anyway - and even if I'm not quite on holiday yet, my workload has already halved. So I'm back and will be posting regularly again. Very regularly I hope - although I didn't have time to write, the ideas kept coming and it's going to be fun writing them all up.

But back to the plot, and Gardeners' Bloom Day. Sadly, it's not only been blogging that I've had to neglect recently, but gardening as well. With predictable results. Yes, there's plenty of stuff on the balcony, but I've not had time to look after it properly - things haven't been deadheaded regularly enough, pests and diseases have been allowed to get too much of a foothold before I got to them, and lots of the stuff I'd planned to have in bloom by now is still sitting there in its seed packets. So no long sweeping views of the balcony in a riot of colour this month I'm afraid. Just photos of the individual flowers which are keeping me going.



I'll start with the exception though. The surfinias are super, as are their stubbier cousins the petunias, though this pink one was an unintentional purchase. What I actually bought was the purple one you can see behind it. But after a couple of weeks it became apparent that there were actually two plants in the pot - they hadn't been thinned out properly. And the second was this rather gooey pink colour.

Then there are these little pelargoniums which have been lovely, though they're just past their best now. I finally got round to dead-heading them yesterday, so I'm hoping they'll bloom again ...

The mallow, on the other hand, is just coming into bloom, having survived last month's leaf miner and red spider mite attacks. Not many flowers yet, but loads of buds.

The hollyhocks are nice too, but haven't given me very many flowers this year, and the plants are a bit straggly. They're quite old now - I think at the end of the year I'll get rid of them and start again.

The nasturtiums are blooming quite well, but I'd hoped for more. They've been attacked by goodness knows what and have lost a lot of leaves, so they've become a bit leggy.

And finally there's this little Begonia pendula, which is new for me this year, Sweet, but not what I'd been expecting. The flowers illustrated on the packet are double and don't have the central yellow part - quite different. And there are a lot more of them - but perhaps that's the gardener's fault ...

But perhaps I should stop beating myself up quite so much about the lack of flowers, because looking up at other people's balconies, they don't seem much better - and I have one or two neighbours who are usually strong competition. And looking back to the GBD post for two years ago, I noticed that in 2007 my plumbago was already in flower. So far this year I haven't seen so much as a bud. And it's not just mine - no-one else's is in bloom either. So maybe it's just a slow year. The weather has been strange (but then when isn't it?). Cold, wet weeks alternating with temperatures of over 30°C (that's mid to high eighties in fahrenheit).

But to finish - a note about Gardeners' Bloom Day. Just in case there's anyone left on the planet who hasn't heard of it, it's an idea started a couple of years back by Carol of May Dreams Gardens. Carol had the brilliant idea of suggesting that on the 15th of each month everyone should post about the flowers which were currently blooming in their gardens. It's been incredibly successful, with scores of people taking part each month. I've not missed many - this is my 22nd GBD post. You can find out who's posted this month by checking Carol's blog and the comments left on her own post.

Birdsong

The gardens surrounding the flat have seen a population explosion in the last few months. Of blackbirds. We've always had a pair living here, but this year there must be at least four. And now that their babies are out of the nest, we're almost trampling them underfoot every time we go out. Not your shy, retiring types these. They were on the path first? Well don't expect them to move. You just have to walk round them.

Strange to see so many, because blackbirds are territorial. According to the RSPB website they will cope with as little as 0.2 hectares of territory. But (if my maths is correct) that's 2,000 square meters. Here, they're living on top of each other. They certainly all stick to their own patch, but it can't be more than about 1000-1500 square metres per pair. (Apologies to anyone who read an earlier version of this, where my maths was way out. I'm useless with figures.)

How do I know? Because they sing to me all day long. Blackbird song must be amongst the most beautiful there is, and this year it's kept me company all day every day. By chance I came across this article on the BBC website the other day reporting on how Great tits in the city sing more loudly than their country counterparts - to make themselves heard over the noise, the article said. Well my blackbirds seem to be doing the same - but I wonder if it doesn't also have something to do with the overcrowding. They sit in "their" trees and scream at each other from 4am onwards.

And over the past few months I've started to recognise the differences in their songs. So, come and meet Pippin and Squeaker....

Pippin has his territory in the front garden. I can hear him from the flat, but his main patch is in a tree just outside my office. Now that the weather is warm and summery, I generally leave the French doors open and he sings to me as I work. He's at it now, as I write in fact. He's an incredibly respectable blackbird. Black and glossy and with a song like liquid gold.

And then there's Squeaker. That's him in the photos. Oh dear, quite a different kettle of fish. Dead tatty to look at, and in the song department - well, let's just say he's somewhat challenged.

Not that his song doesn't have it's own beauty. But it is - how should I say it - somewhat repetitive. And after a couple of months of Flirtpety flip flop! Da da DO dee dah sixteen hours a day, I would quite happily pay for him to have singing lessons. Especially as "his" tree is just outside my bedroom window. I've been awake just after dawn every day for the last two months.

Listen and decide for yourself. The video lasts about a minute, starts with Pippin and then goes on to Squeaker. If you're in the UK or somewhere else in Europe, don't be surprised if it doesn't sound quite like the blackbirds you're used to - like people, birds have regional "accents". British blackbirds, French, German and Italian ones etc won't sound quite the same. And if you live outside Europe and have never heard a blackbird - well, enjoy ...

Yuk - Who ordered that?

Yuk. As the physicist Isidor I. Rabi said when they discovered the muon - who ordered that?

The ancient Greeks called it hubris. Overweening pride and arrogance. The sort of arrogance you display by crowing in your last post about how the cool wet spring has kept the pests and diseases at bay. So that even when you go out and find a nasty attack of aphids, you're not phased. The plant's in a small container, so it's easy enough to bring it in and stick it under the tap. No problem.

But then you look at your pelargoniums and find this. Bleah. Where did that come from? And what is it? Rust? Doesn't look quite like the photos on the net. Oh well, not too many leaves affected. Cut them off and see what happens.



And then you walk on and find this. Some sort of leaf miner. They're all over the nasturtiums, and the mallow too. But easy enough to deal with - they're quite visible and you can just scrape them out with your fingernail.


But erm - hold on. What's that sort of yellow mottling on the other leaves of the mallow? They weren't like that yesterday - no way. In fact I was just thinking how green and lush the plant was looking. And what a wonderful shape it was since I cut it back. And how stupendous it was going to look when it bloomed. Hubris. Oh, what hubris.

And at that point you start to panic and look carefully. And in the next container you notice there's a grey webbing all over the hollyhocks ...

And then you panic. Because you know what it is.


Red spider mite.


They've done it again. Two days ago there was no sign. And now half your plants are almost dead. And now you really crack, and start rooting in the cupboard to see if you've got anything foul and chemical left over from last year. Nothing. So you rush out and cut off all the affected leaves, leaving the plants looking shorn and gawky. And spray with garlic solution and cayenne pepper - anything to keep them at bay.

But you know it won't work. Not when they've got to that point.

So the next day you're at the garden centre. You've done your best, but it hasn't worked. You've lasted a few weeks more than last year, but in the end you've cracked again.

And you spray. Again.

Plants from the Supermarket

Our local supermarket sells plants. As you walk in there are two racks with about eight shelves of annuals, plus a heap of bags of potting compost. Go to the vegetables section and you'll find fresh herbs. Walk on a bit further and you'll find houseplants together with the insecticides and fertilisers. And occasionally, still further in, there'll be a seasonal offer - today it was Bougainvillea, in October it will be Chrysanthemums.

And they all have one thing in common - they're liable to be half dead.

It always amazes me how people will pick up plants in a supermarket which are clearly screaming in agony. They haven't been watered for days, they've been kept in the dark in a storeroom, they've been sitting in the centrally heated atmosphere when they're actually plants which should be outdoors - all of these factors can turn a healthy plant into a dead one in a matter of days. The signs are there - bone dry compost, dead lower leaves, upper leaves or flowers which have just given up and flopped. Just look at it for heaven's sake - you don't have to be a garden expert. And yet they get picked up and shoved into the shopping trolley.

Why? Well, the price of course. When a pelargonium costs €8 at the garden centre and €1.20 at the supermarket, is it surprising that people choose the supermarket? Not to mention the convenience. You have to go to the supermarket anyway, but you'd have to make a special trip to the garden centre. And if you're not a gardener but just want something to pop on the balcony, can you be bothered to do more?



But if you're careful, can you buy decent plants from the supermarket? Well, despite all the above I think you can, and I do - frequently. But it's not like buying a packet of biscuits. They won't all be the same quality and you need to know what you're looking for. Dry soil, brown leaves at the bottom (turn the plant upside down to check) or floppy leaves anywhere are all no-no's. But avoid the clear tell tale signs, dig around at the back of the rack to find the healthiest looking specimens and you can often find bargains. Oh - but avoid the ones in full bloom. They may look great now, but may also be at the end of their flowering period. Go for the ones with the maximum number of buds.



OK, there may still be plants which are stressed but not yet showing it and you may not get super results immediately. Or, even more likely, the plants may be younger than those you'd get at the garden centre, and not quite ready to come into full bloom. Here, at least, the garden centres only stock plants already in flower. It's the buyit - enjoyit - andthrowitaway mentality which I've complained about so often. The idea that you might actually want to watch a plant grow and care for it from one season to the next is still fairly alien to the average plant buyer here. And consequently, in the city at least, the distinction between a garden centre and a nursery doesn't exist. The plants in the photo above are only a third of the size of those in the garden centre. But they're healthy and will grow. Soon they'll be blooming just as well as those in the garden centre are now. And I can wait.

Add to that the fact that the attacks of the geranium bronze butterfly have been increasing in severity so much over the last few years that it's now difficult to keep plants like pelargoniums for longer than one or two years, and you have a good reason for not wanting to invest more than you have to. I lost all mine last year - it was the worst year I've ever had. Replacing them all at garden centre prices would have meant taking out a mortgage - and knowing I'd probably have to do the same next year. Unless of course this year I give in and spray with something more lethal than my usual garlic and cayenne pepper mix. I'm still undecided. Looking back over the blog I noticed that, by chance, two years ago today I was already complaining not only about GBB but also the other bane of my gardening life, red spider mite. This year, probably because it's been fairly cool and wet, there's no sign yet of either. But they're there, I know. Lurking in wait ...

Will she, won't she. Watch this space.

Back to the plot. So, ironically, the supermarket is often the only place you can find plants to have fun with and at a price which makes it worthwhile. If you arrive relatively soon after the plants do, so that they're still looking healthy, then it's worth taking a chance. This is a Campanula which I got eighteen months ago in a 4" pot. One of the disadvantages of supermarket plant shopping is that they're not desperately precise about plant names, but I think it's Campanula Birch Hybrid, a cross between C. portenschlagiana and C. poscharskyana.


But whatever it is, it's thrived. It couldn't care less about heat or cold and has gone from being one of the plants in the container to needing the whole space. The photo was taken several weeks ago, since when it's grown even more. It flowers from April onwards, and has without doubt now established itself as one of my favourites. It's been full of blooms.

All the other plants in the photos originally came from the supermarket too. And I have many more which have grown from cuttings taken from a supermarket plant. If you buy one pelargonium at €1.20 and get six cuttings from it, that's 20 cents a plant. (You see - I've talked before about my mean streak and you didn't believe me, did you?)


My local garden centre won't go out of business - I still spend far more there than I should on out-of-the-ordinary stuff. But if they refuse to give me the smaller, cheaper plants which I want for my staples - well, I shall look elsewhere.

And that means the supermarket. So, next time you're doing your shopping in Milan and you see a lunatic redhead accosting complete strangers and saying - I wouldn't take that one if I were you. This one's much healthier - you know who you're looking at.

Happy Birthday Kew!

Kew Gardens is 250 years old. Happy Birthday Kew. And now a confession ... despite being a born and bred Londoner, I've never visited.

Yet over the past year or so I've been drawn in. I visited their website and got asked to complete a survey. That led to more contact, and soon Kew zoomed the top of my wish list. Even better, at the top of my To Do list, for next time I'm back in London.

Maybe you're far away and can't get to go to Kew. But you can still enjoy it on the web.

Kew is perhaps the only botanical garden to have inspired a song - by Mary Hopkin (remember Those were the days? But this one's called Kew Gardens) Listen to it and take a video tour of the gardens now ...

Then obviously, there's their website - the surveys were to do with improving it. Though quite honestly I liked it as it was. But it's well worth a browse - click on the link.

And if you want to see all the things that Kew has to offer - not only strange or rare plants like the titan arum - the world's largest and smelliest flower - which bloomed in 2007,

but also the treetop walkway ...



the sculptures by Henry Moore ...



the peacocks, Canadian geese, Chinese pheasants and other birds which inhabit the gardens ...


... check out Kew Gardens on flickr, and in particular the photos of whatsthatpicture, whose photos are featured here, generously made available under Creative Commons licence.

And if you're feeling superior because you go there regularly, there's still more to explore. Check out this video (4 mins) on the BBC of the plants which aren't on display to the public.

Happy birthday Kew.

Yummy, yummy - 200 times yummy

I don't usually "do" recipes. But this is a special post. The Balcony Garden reaches 200 posts today, so I thought it was time to do something a bit different.

This winter I discovered Swiss Chard. I can't imagine why I'd never tried it before - I've seen it in the supermarket for years. Perhaps because the heads of chard always looked so big - and as I'm the only person in the family who will eat greens, buying large quantities usually means throwing half the stuff away.

But then I saw it in Germany, while we were there for Christmas. In Germany it's called Mangold. And that reminded me of mandrakes.

Now if you're a Harry Potter fan you'll know that mandrakes are plants which are (in mythology) supposed to shriek when you pull them out of the earth. J K Rowling turns their roots into babies' faces as well. Of course, mandrakes are absolutely not connected to Mangolds except in my mind - which, every time I saw them in the supermarket, kept imagining the root under the base of the plant as a screaming baby.

So in the end I had to try them. And they have quickly zoomed to my number one favourite type of greens. I've not yet got round to planting any, but this article from The Guardian says chard can happily be grown in containers, so they're on my list. Chard likes limey conditions and is tolerant of heat and cold - ideal here. It's also a good container vegetable because you don't have to eat it all in one go. Harvest the outer leaves, and the younger, internal ones will keep on growing to give a second crop, and a third, and a fourth. Again ideal for balcony garden where space is at a premium, and large veg which are only going to provide one meal are sometimes a luxury you can't afford. There are different types of chard - some with red ribs, some with yellow - which I've not yet tried. But the white ribbed version is certainly not to miss.

So - here are a couple of recipes.

First of all, don't worry about having too much. Chard is like spinach. You cook an incredible quantity of raw leaves and they reduce down to a spoonful. And anyway it keeps - it's just as good the next day.

The basic recipe is dead simple. You can eat the whole thing, rib and all, or strip the green leaf from the central white rib. Wash the leaves well, cut them into small bits, and pop them into a saucepan with only a tiny amount of extra water - enough to cover the bottom of the pan but no more. Then add a bit of salt and dribble some good olive oil over the top. Cook over a low heat until the leaves "melt" down.

Like that, they're great as a vegetable to accompany a meat dish or to eat on their own. But for me, the best bit is using up the leftovers the next day as ...

Spaghetti with Gorgonzola and Chard


Gorgonzola Dolce has to be the cheese of the Gods. Don't confuse it with Gorgonzola Piccante, which is the older and much stronger version - similar to other blue cheeses such as Stilton.

Gorgonzola Dolce (dolce means "sweet") is soft and creamy with a mild taste. It's no more than two months old, and when out of the fridge for a while should be soft and runny. I could live on it.


Melted down over a low heat in a pan, then combined with some previously cooked chard, it's a wonderful sauce for spaghetti. (We exaggerated a bit with the cheese in the photo above - don't use half so much.)


And apart from the fact that it tastes wonderful, chard is also good for you. It's high in vitamins K, A and C as well as containing various other vitamins and minerals essential for health (see here for a breakdown).

So - for our 200th anniversary, I haven't baked a cake. But if you want to celebrate with me - try some chard.

Strange stuff, Italian lettuce...

I've been planting my veg. The beans are zooming through, and the zucchini too. The Jerusalem artichokes are doubling in size every day it seems, and the tomatoes are almost ready to be transferred to bigger pots. But it seems I may get more of them than I bargained for. Because I've been planting lettuce too. Here's the seed packet...

And here's the back of the packet - as you can see, it says lattuga - that's Italian for lettuce. And there's a handy cultivation guide. It tells me where and how to sow, whether I should thin out, and so on.



And finally it tells me when I can expect to harvest. And what.

Tomatoes it seems. Strange stuff, Italian lettuce.

Images of Spring

March started grey, cold and wet and hopes of an early spring seemed to disappear. But then it changed. And wow did it change. The temperature shot up, and the sky turned a clear blue. And before long ...

The forsythia came out.

It's rare for Milan to look good but if it happens, it happens in March. As we get very little wind, there's usually a pall of smog hanging over the city. The EU sets limits of pollution (measured by the level of particles in the air) which it considers "acceptable" and allows cities to exceed those limits for no more than 35 days a year before they impose fines. By the end of February, we'd become the first European city to exceed that total.

So thank goodness March brought winds. Warm ones at first, which had the trees budding and cleared the usual grungy colour of the sky ....

And for almost the whole month we've been able to see the mountains - something that usually happens no more than a few times a year.

Soon the cherry blossom started to come out too, but sadly didn't last long. A few hours of very, very strong gusty winds one day destroyed it before we'd had time to enjoy it. Just sad for the ornamental trees, but dangerous for the "real" fruit trees. The greengage tree below the balcony, which feeds the flocks of great tits and the chaffinches which live in the garden in summer, wasn't in flower for more than a couple of days. We shall see later this year.

Luckily I'd been out with my camera the day before the winds came ...

.. and just walking round our block had taken all these photos except for the one of the mountains, which was taken during a walk in a local park. The mimosa tree at the bottom of the road was in full bloom ...

... and the gardens around the appartment blocks were full of magnolias

The good weather and clear air went on for three weeks. Too good to be true of course, and March is going out as it came in - cold, wet and grey. And without the March winds, next month the smog will come back. Ah well. At least we had those three weeks.

Tulips - the second year

The gardening books and internet sites were adamant : tulip bulbs won't do well a second year if they're grown in containers. They'll be too small, they'll be too weak. Throw them away and buy new ones.

It wasn't that I didn't believe them. Quite the opposite. The bulbs did look smaller than when I'd got them, and yes, some of them had split into bulblets. But you see, I have this mean streak, and the idea of throwing them away ...

So I compromised. I did buy new bulbs, but I went for daffodils. And I just stuck all the tulip bulbs higgledy piggledy into one container. And waited to see what happened.

I didn't get excited when the leaves came through. Well, that was what I was expecting, leaves. But then a few days ago I noticed a couple of buds. Oh, that's nice - one or two are going to bloom. Or three, or four, or twenty ...

For the last few days they've been stupendous, closing up tight at night then opening as the spring sunshine hits. Yes, they are a bit smaller than last year. Have a look here and compare for yourself. But so what? This is a balcony, and they're supposed to be a dwarf variety. I like them small.

And the colour and the display are just as good - perhaps better. It goes to show what I've said before. Containers look better if you halve normal planting distances and pile the plants on top of each other.

Will they go on a third year? I don't know. But I know I shall try. And if you want to with yours, here's what to do. As soon as the flowers die down, dead-head them so that the plant doesn't put its energy into creating seeds. You want that energy used to fatten up the bulbs. And carry on watering and fertilising. Bulbs, like people, get fat if they're fed well and lose weight if they're not.

Leave them until the foliage dies down naturally. This can be a drag on a balcony where space is limited, and is a definite discouragement when success is not 100% certain. But it takes those two or three months after flowering for the bulbs to regain the strength they'll need to come back the next year.

And then, once the leaves have yellowed, cut them off and lift the bulbs. Store them in a cool, dry place and wait for autumn to come again.

Who knows? You may be lucky.

Bonfire

Bonfire. For me the word immediately brings back memories of being a child in London on November 5th - in a time before people thought about air pollution, and when safety was seen as a personal rather than a state responsibility. November 5th was bonfire night - Fireworks night, or Guy Fawkes.

It was a day in the year which I longed for, and as the days drew in and the nights got colder, excitement and anxiety mounted. What if it rained? What if we couldn't do it?





The weekend before, Dad would start to build the bonfire. Paper underneath, small twigs on top, then old bits of dry wood and branches which he'd been accumulating and drying all summer. And we'd make the Guy. Mum would dig out some old clothes which we'd stuff with newspaper to make the effigy that would burn on top of the fire.

Yes I know. It's horrific, and now quite politically incorrect to even think of simulating burning someone to death. But we didn't really make the connection. For us, although we knew the historical roots, the guy was no more a real person than the scarecrow you make to protect your raspberries.

And I wonder now whether the real origin of the tradition wasn't quite different. Apparently, the word bonfire is a reduction of bone-fire and refers to the old Celtic tradition of burning animal bones at the festival of Samhain, to ward off evil spirits. Samhain is celebrated on November 1st (it's also the origin of Hallowe'en). And I wonder whether the burning of the Guy was not just an addition to a much older custom.

The day arrived. Goodness knows what the teachers did with us in school that day. I know our minds were only on the evening. And when we got home, time seemed to drag out eternally. Would 6.30 ever come? Would it ever get dark?

But it did, and finally Dad announced we could start. Coats, scarves, mittens, wellington boots and woolly hats were on in a trice, and out we trooped.

First came the worst moment - lighting the fire. Would it take? Had things got too damp in the last few days?

But Dad was a wizard, and sooner or later the bonfire started to blaze. First the paper would flare up. But would the twigs catch? A flicker of flame - please, please don't let it die. And then the wood would start to burn and the Guy too. We were there.

Once the fire was going, it was time to start the fireworks. Roman Candles, rockets launched from milk bottles, and Catherine Wheels nailed onto the poles which a few months earlier had been supporting the runner beans. And sparklers to wave. Sparklers were the only fireworks that we kids were allowed to touch. Only Dad had the matches, and if the kids weren't standing well back, then nothing happened.

And of course, it wasn't just us. there was a bonfire in all the other gardens too, and we'd eke out the fireworks by collaborating with the neighbours. You set one of yours off, then we'll do one of ours. And we'll all see everything.

And while we oohed and ahhed over the fireworks, we cooked our dinner. Sausages were speared on long sticks and held over the flames; potatoes and apples were set to bake in the embers.

Finally, the last firework had been set off, the last sausage eaten, and the fire was dying down. It was time for bed. And oh, how long it seemed until next year.

Why am I telling you all this? Are the photos really of fifty years ago? No, of course they aren't. But I've been tagged by She Who Digs for a meme in which you go into your photo archive, choose the fourth photo in the fourth folder and write about it. And because of the highly idiosyncratic way I label my folders, I ended up at the photos of when we were in Germany this Christmas. While we were there, some friends who live in the country invited us over to a bonfire barbeque. We started in the afternoon, but by six o'clock it was dark and standing round the fire in the freezing cold brought back all the memories. The photo below was the fourth in the folder.

I'm supposed to tag another four people, but I'm not going to. Instead here's an open invitation. Have a look at your photo files. Go to the fourth photo in the fourth folder, and see what it says to you. And if you want to write about it, consider yourself tagged.