Flowers For Free

Very often gardeners are so intent on finding plants to flower for the garden that they overlook those that grow in the wild around them. To an extent there is a certain amount of snobbery concerning plants. If you don't buy it then it is not of any worth.

I have come across this many times throughout the years. Plants that are every bit as good for the garden are despised purely because they are wildflowers.

Yet if the same plant with the same flower came from another continent then it would be bought and cosseted within that persons garden.

Growing plants that are from ones own region not only adds to a garden diversity but encourages wildlife to thrive in the garden. True many garden plants that come from elsewhere do still have good ecological credentials. But ones that are natural to the area often support greater and more diversified wildlife colonies.

Here in this bed I encourage Red Campion (Silene dioca) to thrive. The blast of colour it gives for quite some weeks is so eye catching that passersby comment on the show. I hope some go away with new ideas for their own gardens.

Having said that,they just as likely think it is an expensive plant from a Garden Centre, what else would give such a show of colour!

London Pride

It's time now for the London Pride (Saxifraga umbrosa) to be at it's showiness in an understated way. We love this plant not only for the delicacy and airiness of the blooms when it is flower, or the florettes of leaves that fill in some difficult places. But also for the fact that all the plants of it that we have in the garden were completely free.

Just because it was free is not the true significance of it. But because how we obtained them.

When we first moved here there was not a garden as such and on the bottom part of the land where the old shed stood, once used to be the farm workers cottage.

The cottage had a low stone wall built in front of it. This had become overgrown with bushes and grass. But right on the end of the wall two London Pride plants maintained a hold in the rocks.

These plants and their ancestors must have been growing there for over 60 years. That was the last time that the cottage had been lived in before most of it was demolished and an old hooped shed built on the foundations.

From these two plants we established a colony within the garden that now consists of hundreds of plants.

Soft filmy flowers with all year green rosettes contrast wonderfully against stone and rock within the garden. The flowers attract numerous small flies and is alive with movement when the sun is warm.