Did you ever find out that variety of sunflower? I think it's the most beautiful I've ever seen. Made me think of the "Sun in flames", emblem of the Duke of York. I'd love to have some in my garden.
Did you ever find out that variety of sunflower? I think it's the most beautiful I've ever seen. Made me think of the "Sun in flames", emblem of the Duke of York. I'd love to have some in my garden.
The other day I looked at my flowering holly tree and saw that it was covered with small honey bees and a few other types of bee. Cotoneaster horizontalis seems to attract all sorts of bees.
Right now I have ragged robin in flower and the bees are all over it. I know some consider it as a weed, but it’s worth pulling out the hundreds of seedlings every spring to let the bees have such a great feed.
Marne la vallée, basically just outside Paris 🇫🇷, but definitely Scottish at heart.
Lupins, phaecelia and persicaria seem the most popular here although the alkanet and clover are still busy as well
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
Bees are all over it, sleep in it, wait out rain on it… there hasn’t been a moment without buzz around lavender this year so far!
Which variety do you have please?
I'm about to plant a 6m row of lavender and will most likely go with hidcote or angustifolia, being the most widely available. Not sure which to choose though.
I'm about to plant a 6m row of lavender and will most likely go with hidcote or angustifolia, being the most widely available. Not sure which to choose though.
I always thought those two were the same because I mainly grow my lavender from seed haha… All seeds were labeled as “Angustifolia [something]” (like Munstead). There was however “Angustifolia Hidcote Promise Compact” , so if I had to make a guess maybe the one that was labeled as just Hidcote would just be smaller and denser as an adult?
And maybe the one labeled just as Angustifolia is referring to that “true lavender” with no hybridization whatsoever, which likely means that it’s the one with strongest perfume and darker flowers. But this is only a guess based on how seeds were labeled in my case and what they grew into.
They most likely need exactly same conditions, but bloom in slightly different time. You could always alternate them and plant 50/50 each kind this may prolong the season .
I personally ended up really liking Munstead purely because of color. It’s a leggier variety with more wispy almost pale blue flowers. It’s also one of the first ones to start blooming. A very stable grower from seed.
Earlier this year I seeded 36 plugs and every single one is still alive, half of them are already in the ground as an experiment… still alive and growing side shoots now. (Old photo before potting up)
I grow lavender from seeds as well, any variety I can get hold of😀 At the moment the bees are soaring over my dark blue geraniums and alliums mostly but that will change when the Veronicas, salvias and buddlias are out.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
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@ForTheBees
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I'm about to plant a 6m row of lavender and will most likely go with hidcote or angustifolia, being the most widely available. Not sure which to choose though.
I always thought those two were the same because I mainly grow my lavender from seed haha… All seeds were labeled as “Angustifolia [something]” (like Munstead). There was however “Angustifolia Hidcote Promise Compact” , so if I had to make a guess maybe the one that was labeled as just Hidcote would just be smaller and denser as an adult?
But this is only a guess based on how seeds were labeled in my case and what they grew into.
(Old photo before potting up)
At the moment the bees are soaring over my dark blue geraniums and alliums mostly but that will change when the Veronicas, salvias and buddlias are out.