Wild and Weedy Wednesday: 17th May, 2023

I have chosen a very weedy plant this week; each Wednesday I post about one of the wild flowers and/or weeds I find in my garden, and read up on its common names and uses. So many of them are edible, and this one is no exception: Red Sorrel, also known as Sheep’s Sorrel or Field Sorrel (Rumex acetosella).

It is small, pinkish red and spreads like mad via rhizomes, but has many benefits for wildlife. In fact, while reading about this plant for today’s post I discovered that it is beneficial to the Small Copper – a butterfly that I had photographed only a few days ago! The Copper depends on it for food, and it is also a food source for groundfeeding songbirds such as sparrows, of which we have plenty! So although its big sister, Common Sorrel or Rumex acetosa, also called dock leaf, caused us problems when we moved here (perhaps I’ll do a post on that too), I am happy to see this small and pretty one growing in the tall grass.

Here is the Small Copper, visiting one of my flower beds. 😃

Below you can see it is surrounded by several other wild plants or ‘weeds’, such as veronica, wild pansies and plantains, which may also feature in future posts.

It thrives on poor, sandy, slightly acid soil, in the full sun, so we have perfect conditions for it here. Drought is not a problem for it either. It grows to about 30 cm, and can flower all summer if not mown. It can give larger areas of fields or heathland a red shimmer.

I mentioned that it is edible, but only in small quantities due to the toxic oxalic acid. This makes it taste sour, which explains the German common name (Sauerampfer) meaning ‘sour bitter’! But a few young leaves and flowers can be added to a salad to pep it up. It is one of the seven herbs used for the famous ‘Frankfurt Green Sauce‘. (The other six are Borage, Chives, Anthriscus, Parsley, Salad Burnet and Cress.)

I would love to know what weeds and wild flowers grow in your gardens, so if you would like to join me on a Wednesday, please leave a link below.

Happy gardening!

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In a Vase on Monday: ‘Royal Bumble’

You may be wondering what on earth the title of this week’s vase means! Well, it is the name of the red Salvia I have used: Salvia greggii ‘Royal Bumble’.

 

The Peony foliage was actually what I started off with. It has already started to turn this lovely pinky orange colour. The grass is Calamagrostis brachytricha, also with a reddish pink tinge.

 

I then added a few stems of Hypericum ‘Miracle Night’, and several stems of this deep scarlet Salvia, grown from my own cuttings last year.

 

The whole vase was then photgraphed on one of the stepping stones in the Herb Bed, surrounded by some of the other salvias I have grown this year.

This was the part of the Herb Bed I enlarged in the Spring. Now that we have had lots of rain it is slowly filling up with stipa, sage and borretsch seedlings. And the Parsley has done well there too! 😃

Thanks as always to Cathy at Rambling in Garden, who asks us to join her each week with a vase of materials from our gardens.

Have a good week, and happy gardening!

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In a Vase on Monday: From the Edge of the Meadow

There are areas in the garden that don’t get mown, including up against the fence….

Or this lovely slope next to the garage…

But the idea of flattening this ‘meadow’ if I walk through has put me off picking any flowers…. until now, as there are some Queen Ann’s Lace flowers and some moon daisies open near the edges! So on a perfect summer’s day (Sunday) I selected a mix of what I could reach, and a few other things from the edges of the garden. 😃

Some of the flowers are: Moon daisies, Fleabane, Harebells, Red and Yellow Clovers, St John’s Wort, Knapweed, Yarrow, Bedstraw and Bugle.

 

I love finding a bit of pink yarrow, which occasionally turns up amongst the white…

The St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is actually from my Herb Bed, but we do have some flowering around the garden too. I hope to find enough to pick and dry for tea in winter. 😃

Is anything growing wild in your gardens this week? 😉

I am participating in ‘In a Vase on Monday’, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Why not visit her blog to see other vases from far and wide… 😃

Happy gardening!

In a Vase on Monday: Silvery Sage

I have been getting to know more and more varieties of Salvia over the past couple of years, and one I am completely in love with at the moment is the Salvia sclarea, or Clary Sage. I sowed some seed and planted out a few small plants into the Herb Bed last spring, having no idea how big these plants become!

 

 I also had no idea how lovely they are. So one has been cut for the centre piece of my vase this week.

What better companions for it than some of my other sages. The strong purple in front is Salvia viridis, also sown and planted out last spring with little idea of what it will look like. 😃

The white salvia is growing in the Moon Bed: Salvia nemorosa ‘Schneehügel’. This one has the slightly bitter smell that I don’t like much. The culinary sages smell wonderful though and I added a pink and lilac one to the vase.

And then finally I added two sprigs of my ornamental salvias ‘Nachtvlinder’ and ‘Aromax Blue’. Hard to see on the photos, but they will no doubt feature again here soon!

Do you grow salvias? Which are your favourites?

I am linking to Cathy’s Monday meme inviting us to share a vase of flowers etc from our gardens. Do visit her at Rambling in the Garden to see her lovely British vase today as well as to see who else is picking and plonking/elegantly arranging flowers this week!

Happy gardening!

Salvia sclarea

Wordless Wednesday: Icing Sugar

Salvia greggii ‘Icing Sugar’

In a Vase on Monday: Mostly Herbs

I have been harvesting some herbs recently. Last week it was parsley, sage and chives; the parsley and sage are cut into small pieces and dried in our food dehydrator until dry enough to crumble, and the chives are snipped and simply frozen in tiny containers, ready to sprinkle over/in hot food. I also made some parsley and garlic paste (that was strong!) and some parsley ice cubes.

But today the mint was due to be picked and, as always, I got distracted and started picking things for a Monday vase!

The photos are taken on the steps next to my Herb Bed, which is also ‘mostly herbs’. There is a Viburnum in the middle, a few antirrhinums, a Geum, a Euphorbia and some spring bulbs. But I think everything else could be classified as a herb or medicinal plant (German has one word for this: Heilkräuter).

The first Hypericum flower of the season on my dark-leafed Hypericum shrub was the prompt for my vase, as this shrub looks so pretty growing near the Antirrhinums and I had already decided I wanted to use a couple of those today.  Some blue borage set them off nicely.

The pink sage flowers also look nice with the dark foliage. I have several sages, including some ornamental ones. To my surprise, a couple overwintered from last year, including this purple one: Nachtvlinder.

Other green foliage is mint(!), lemon balm and more Hypericum. Somewhere at the back there is even a sprig of parsley! 😉

I am now going to chop up all this mint for the dehydrator and will remember this warm sunny June day while sipping some mint tea on a winter’s day. 😃

Thanks to Cathy from Rambling in the Garden for keeping this idea alive every week, where we share things plucked from our gardens or neighbourhoods and show them off in a vase of some sort.

Have a lovely Monday and a great week.

Happy gardening!

The First Garden Projects of 2022

We have finally had some sunshine and milder days recently, albeit with a chilly wind and snow flurries in between. But the blue sky has enticed me outdoors to start my first gardening project of the year: widening the Herb Bed.

Well, actually two projects: the grass that I am removing is going into the bottom of the two new raised planters which were assembled last week. 👍

These will be permanent fixtures on the patio for salad crops and vegetables, safe from the hares. (And slugs!)😃

I put some larger garden debris right at the base, then a layer of sods, and next week I shall find some twiggy stuff before another layer of soil and then compost finishes it off. Some of the soil I need has kindly been provided by my industrious little garden helpers. 😂😂😂

Each morning we awaken to a few more molehills, and it has been too wet to remove them yet. The (mostly) nocturnal culprits are advancing towards my flower beds…. 😯

Back to the Herb Bed. Nearly done in this photo, where you can see some large pieces of old paving slabs I had to dig out. A sprinkling of snow delayed progress today, but work will be resumed in a day or two.

 Can’t wait to get sowing. The new space will be filled with dill, parsley, chives, artemisia annua, nigella sativa, borage, coriander, and perhaps a few decorative salvias. 😃

Have you got any new projects coming up? Do share!

Happy gardening!

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