The idea when I got the allotment was not only to grow vegetables, but to grow flowers for cutting, and although I wish we'd gone for 10 rods rather than 5 (that's another story), I am still determined to make space for beautiful blooms.
I had already made an area for Sweet Williams and Wallflowers, they have been in for sometime, and are well established and flourishing.
Deciding what else to grow was made easy by the fact that whilst browsing the online seed catalogue, I noticed that some of my favourite flowers were in the sale.
Lily of the Valley is a flower ,and fragrance that I have always loved, but have had limited success with growing it at home, so perhaps I will have more luck at the allotment. My Grandmother used to call it the May Lily so I'm assuming that is the flowering month.
I have also chosen Ornamental Alliums, Superglobe, and Drumstick. A mixture of medium to tall alliums with large globe shaped heads, which should flower from May to June.
Last but by no means least, Freesias. I love their scent and have planted 40 mixed colours. I've never grown them before so have high hopes. ( By the way did you know that Freesia flowers are 'zygomorphic' which
means that they grow along one side if the stem in a single plane.)
Whilst planting, Ray sauntered down to our plot to see what progress we had made, Ray has 15 well farmed rods, and grows just about everything from cabbages and beans to blueberries and peanuts.
As he cast an expert eye over our patch he asked what I was sowing? “Alliums and Freesias”I told him. “But you can't eat Freesias, can you?
I reassured him that I was also planting Lily of the Valley which is really a herb, a small consolation.
As virtuous as growing your own food is, growing flowers feeds my soul.
I didn't know borecole was kale but I know what a freesia is - a giver of milk hohoho. Fressia's are actually my favourite flower but I had no luck flowering the one I got in a kit for my birthday. Does this flower growing mean we can expect to see you and your bucket of stems in a lay by somewhere ;) S
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog and love it. Lily of the Valley is a poisonous plant, check this, I am a little concerned because you call it a herb. Young leaves resemble wild garlic, so we are always warned to avoid planting both in the same plot. Btw it is Finlands national flower.
ReplyDeleteGrandpa above, in the Netherlands kale is named boerenkool, pronounced boorecole, in the northeast it is called mous, the early meaning of that word is green vegetables, it was the main wintercrop over here. In German Fryslan they call it the palm of the north, because by picking the lower leaves first and slowly picking of the leaves during winter to the top, they resemble ;pttle palmtrees.
I found your blog when I stumbled upon Fiona's :) I really love the last sentence of this post. It really made me smile and rang true with me, too.
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ReplyDeleteHello Thankyou for the info re Borecole/Kale do you pronounce the S with Mous? Don't worry I won't be using Lily of the Valley, but it is considered a herb by the Herb Society they do recommend that it should only be used by a qualified herbalist.
Here is a link http://www.herbsociety.org.uk/hom-lov.htm
Gwen
ReplyDeleteHello to you. Thankyou for you comment, having the allotment will allow me to grow flowers that I can't at home, because although we have 1/2 an acre we are quite shaded as we have 4 oak trees on the perimeter. I now want to get another allotment so I can grow just flowers.
Just followed the link from cottage smallholder, and had to say how good your plot looks after all your hard work. Thanks for the beetroot in raspberry jelly recipe I can't wait to try it as I have some more beetroot swelling nicely and will start to be picked as soon as they reach ping pong ball size.
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