Seeds and Weeds

Yesterday my husband and I went to Wakehurst Place in Sussex. We were amazed at the sizes of the trees; some must have been growing for years as they were massive. I have never seen any photo or painting that can truly capture the magnificence of a large tree; they are just one of those things that have to be seen to be appreciated.

While we were there we visited the Millennium Seed Bank. I have always appreciated the importance of plants but never really considered the future of plants and the devastating effect of certain plants dying out. The Millennium Seed Bank Project is incredible as not only do they have to collect the seeds but also work out how to store them in a way that will enable them to germinate again maybe in hundreds of years time and each seed has different requirements. They said that they have now collected seeds from every plant known in Britain except for a couple of rarer ones. What a job...I'd love to work there.

Anyway when I see the weeds in my garden I will now think that in generations to come people might be pleased to see these plants. In fact just at the moment I have to say that some of my weeds are looking quite pretty:-)

Weed or Flower?

I love this time of year but it always leaves me feeling a bit confused.

The field behind us is full of horrible yellow flowering weeds (Hawks Beard I think) whose seed heads are blown into our garden and totally wreck it. This really annoys me but at the same time when I step out of the garden and into the field I love seeing the orchids and other less invasive wild flowers that co-exist with the annoying ones and I love the fact that it provides a habitat for butterflies and ground nesting birds.

Yesterday I pulled out loads of these yellow flowering plants and other weeds from the garden, got covered in stinging nettle stings and hurt my back trying to pull up copious wild poppies from the rockery. Then I went for a walk in the fields to the side of us and spent ages trying to capture the beauty of fields covered with the same poppies I'd been pulling out of the garden.

I think there is a saying that, 'a weed is just a flower in the wrong place'. After seeing the poppies I'm so pleased there are still some 'right places'.

Dry day in the Garden

At last a dry day, so despite painful muscles after a particularly arduous horse ride the previous evening, I decided to abandon the housework and get into the garden. A drop of rain and the odd bout of sunshine had done wonders for the weeds...stinging nettles had sprung up everywhere and the first shoots of bindweed had reached at least a metre. Why don't all plants grow with such vigour I wonder. There are some weeds though that although a nuisance I can't help liking and the buttercup is one. We seem to have a bumper crop this year but their splash of brilliant yellow adds a nice touch here and there so they have been left for another day.

Another odd thing I find about my garden is the way that the flowers in the border seem to prefer the gravel area around the path. My perennial Sweet Pea, Lavenders and Sweet Williams have all taken to growing there instead of where I originally planted them. It looks pretty though so they can stay too.

Around lunchtime I was just thinking that it felt like I was in another country because our flock of Ring Necked Parakeets were making such a lot of parroty squawks when all of a sudden, just to confuse me further, I heard the sound of bagpipes coming from the other side of the valley...very unusual for SE England. The next hour was spent very happily pottering around the garden accompanied by some really lovely music but then my husband started the lawnmower and the airport started its load of afternoon flights so I went in for lunch.