Tag Archives: Butterflys

New Beds 1, 2 and 3

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Recently, I’ve planted up three new beds at the Priory.  None of them are particularly big and one is really only an extension of a larger border.
The only truly new one, and the last one to be planted up, is called the um, er, the er (thinks furiously) Kitchen Bed (it lies directly outside the kitchen door).  It’s triangular in shape with each side being eight or nine feet long.  It was formed by some paths we had laid a few months ago (horrendously expensive reclaimed Victorian pavers) and had been left empty for far too long.  Using a quick, if expensive, remedy it has now been planted up.  I’ve put in a border of box and centre stage, taking a perpetual bow, is an Acer palmatum dissectum.
As a temporary fill-up within the box edging, I’ve planted dozens of Lobelia ‘Crystal Palace’ (buy one get one free – so saved a bit of cash there).  I was going to sit down and plan some permanent planting but tell you what, though I’ve never been into summer bedding, I rather like this upright mat forming lobelia.  Quite smitten with that blue.  I shall think on  …
The second newly planted border is at the top of the car park, up against one of Margaret’s fields.  It used to host a berberis and weeds; nettles and couch grass and all sorts come through the wire fence from the field (I haven’t worked out how to combat that yet).  But late last year, I took out the berberis (and most of the weeds), and planted a dozen or so

of the grass, Miscanthus transmorrisonensis.

They are just beginning to throw out their flower heads.  Just to pad out the grasses until they get a little more established, I’ve also put in eight or so Verbena bonariensis.  I know, I know already.  I use a LOT of this plant.  But … it’s readily available, it’s free (it self seeds brazenly), I’ve got a lot of space to fill and I love it.  I promise you that as the garden gets more established, I will cut back on the VB.  I can do it.  Anytime, I want to.  I don’t NEED it.  Just say no to VB.  No probs.  Anytime I want.  I’ll just quit.  Just not yet ….. but soon*.

Along the rocks at the front I’ve planted some Erigeon karvinskianus (try saying that after a pint of sherry), and behind those Dianthus ‘Queen of Henri.’  I had the latter knocking about from when I worked in an alpine nursery.  They’re as pretty as pretty can be and their scent is knock out.  Probably the best plant scent in the history of the world.  Probably.
There is a youngish elder tree growing in this bed (which I didn’t have the heart – or inclination – to take out) and  I’m growing Clematis ‘Bill Mackenzie’ up it.   I love elder flower and elder berries and I just thought that the whole tree smothered in the nodding yellow flowers of the clematis as well would look amazing.  Or rubbish.  We’ll see next year when ‘Bill’ reaches the top.

April 2011

At one end of the Rock Border, is a bulbous bulge extending out into  the east lawn.  I’ve rather grandly (and pompously) called this the ‘Tropical Bed.’  It isn’t proper, grown up tropical in the way that say, ‘Mark and Gaz’ do tropical.  This is more 1970′s tropical.  1970′s Sunday supplement tropical;  a few dahlias and a brace of cannas.  Did they have cannas in the 70′s?

The colocasia (centre between the cannas) is pretty much indistinguishable from the leaves of the arum lilies on the right. Tsk.

Must have; they had Concorde and space travel.  Anyway a banana (Musa basjoo), some cannas, some dahlias, a colocasia, a ginger lily (Hedychium gardnerianum) that didn’t flower and is only now emerging

(though luckily, I had some helichrysums in the long borders that did flower)

and hey, presto – a tropical border.  Sort of.  Anyway, it’s a start.  It’ll be better and more thought out next year. And I suspect – BIGGER.

A Comma (Polygonia c-album)

* It is difficult not to use Verbena bonariensis in quantity, if only because of the butterflies.

A Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

I rarely walk past without seeing something feeding on (or in this case) near it

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

and that alone makes me happy.

Feed, my beauties, feed.

Hubris and Angelica. And Wasps.

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A few weeks ago, all puffed up and pleased with myself, I wittered on about my Crambe cordifolia flowering for the first time. (See “I’m So Excited…”).
It’s up.
Someone, somewhere rolled their eyes, yawned, looked at their fingernails and decided I needed to be taken down a peg or two.  Accordingly, the wind got up and when I arrived at work I found -
It’s down.

this.  Aarrgghhhh – my lovely Crambe.  Serves me right for not staking it.

It’s up.
After a little stomping about and shaking my fist at the sky, I hauled the Crambe upright (most of its root was still intact) and lashed it to a metal support.  For a day or two it didn’t look half bad and I thought it might just pull through.  But then, after weeks of virtually no rain, we had buckets of the stuff.
It’s down.
Aarrgghhhh – my lovely Crambe.  Most of the flowering stems had snapped under the weight of water.  I give up.  I mean what’s the point?  What’s the bleedin’ point?  You grow a big flower explosion of a plant and it keels over at the first whiff of wind and the first smidgen of rain.  Always said it was a rubbish plant.  Didn’t I?  Wouldn’t give it border room.  Rubbish, I say.

Pretty flowers, though.   Perhaps I will give it another chance next year after all.  Perhaps.

Next to the collapsed Crambe, at the back of  one of the Kidney Beds, is an angelica (Angelica archangelica).  And it’s a big plant;  I’m six-foot and it towers above me.

Told you.  What a good plant; big, robust and handsome.  And you’d need a water buffalo to flatten it.  I could do with several more to dot about – let the wind blow and the rain hammer down. No staking required.

I like its green flowers and how they shrug off their protective sheath …

… and slowly unfurl to resemble er, I don’t know what.  A space-station?  An exploding galaxy?

And I’m not the only one to like angelica.  Whilst bees aren’t bothered, wasps adore it.

I know many people hate and fear wasps and have their nests exterminated on sight.  Generally, I prefer not to exterminate things (I make an exception for people who don’t say thank you when I’ve held a door open for them).  Wasps are great  pollinators (and given the state of our honey bee population we need all the help we can get) and they also take insects pests back to the nest to feed to their larvae.  At this time of year they are too intent on collecting food to worry about me.  Even though I was sticking my big head and camera lens right in amongst them, they couldn’t have been less bothered.  There were several dozen buzzing about my ears but they let me be and I didn’t feel in the slightest bit threatened.
Not like when, as a child, I stuck a stick into a wasp’s nest to see what would happen.  I got stung; is what happened, several times.  Duh.  Good lesson learnt.  Never, ever, ever poke a stick into a wasp’s nest.  However much you may be tempted.  OK?  Ever.
In late summer as the cohesion of the colony disintegrates and they get drunk on  fermenting fruit, wasps can be (are) annoying and aggressive.  Especially if you’re out in the garden having a jam sandwich.  However, a couple of summers back we had a nest in an air brick right outside our back door.  Even though it was at face height, we had no problems with them all summer.  It was only in late autumn that my partner got stung.  For no apparent reason a wasp landed on his forehead and stung him.  Probably disapproved of the shirt he was wearing.  But hey, one sting all season from a nest next to our most used door didn’t seem too bad. (‘Sides it wasn’t me who got stung)!
The nests are almost always abandoned in autumn and not reused

A year later, wasps took over a bird nest box in our garden.  We watched fascinated as the wasp nest slowly but inexorably seeped out from the confines of the ‘box and grew.  And grew.  (Sadly I only took one photo of it and that in its early stages – above).  I’m sure many people would have had the nest poisoned but was there any need?  Truly?  We enjoyed watching this strange phenomena swell.  A little aghast perhaps as it was sooo strange, sooo alien but we enjoyed it nonetheless.   And with friends over and a glass of Chablis in hand it made a super talking point.   “Oooh, do come and see our ever-expanding, all enveloping wasp nest.  Do.”

So no.  Generally speaking, I don’t like to exterminate things.

Call me old-fashioned.

For those of you who remain unconvinced of the charms of Vespula vulgaris, the gardens are awash with butterflies.

Meadow Brown

Just walking along the mown paths in the meadow throws up all sorts of species.

Large Skipper

I’m not a butterfly expert by any means but I am making an effort this summer to try to learn a few of the more common ones.  This website has been a tremendous help.

Small Tortoiseshell feeding on nepeta

Terrifically rewarding that however many doubts and worries I may have about the garden at the Priory (and they are legion), it is attracting plenty of wildlife.

Tricky to photo as they do tend to fly off as you approach but a passable shot of a Common Blue.  They feed on vetches of which there are plenty in the meadow.  Pretty, eh?  And they don’t sting!