Category Archives: Wildflowers

One little “weed”…

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I referred to my one little “weed” in my last video blog but if you missed it, here it is…

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea

Any ideas? I hadn’t a clue what it was when I first spotted it growing in my ‘roots’ bed. It was certainly nothing I’d ever planted or seen growing in my veg beds before.

I was intrigued – what could this stray little plant be? I didn’t pull it out as I had been doing all morning with the creeping buttercups and dandelions.

I let it be until it had been identified as a friend or foe.

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea leavesI racked my brain – what had been growing in this patch in previous years? Nothing we’d ever planted of that I was certain. So I headed indoors with a cup of tea, fired up the PC and spent a half hour or so googling “weed” images but came up a blank. Hmmm dilemma, what to do now? Thank goodness for friendly gardeners – I sent off a picture to a gardening guru friend for some professional help – they were thrown too given it’s location. However, a couple of days later a simple text reply came back and I laughed, as no doubt they had too…

Haha! How could I have missed it? My little ‘weed’ was none other than a foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)! These biannual plants are currently popping up all around our hedgerows but I hadn’t dreamed of or expected to find one in my veg patch and it had me completely thrown.

Foxglove flower

With thanks to www.foxglovelane.com for the lovely image

Foxgloves are such pretty plants, the bees love them and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said

“What is a Weed? A plant who’s virtues have never been discovered”

Well in this case the foxglove’s virtues have most definitely been discovered – both ornamental and medicinally. I have no plans to use it for the later – extracts from it are used to treat heart conditions making it toxic to those of us who aren’t chemists. I love to see flowers growing in vegetable gardens though – from nasturtiums to marigolds, Calendula to borage. They attract insects and give vegetable gardens character and colour. My foxglove will be just another addition – albeit a stunning one.

“A weed is just a flower growing in the wrong place”

So as I’ve decided that all the stray foxgloves are staying exactly where nature intended them to be, that now puts them firmly in the flower category …

Do you have a favourite flower growing in your garden that others might classify as a weed?

Bee Cause – How we can help

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Image courtesy of Friends of the Earth

Last week Friends of the Earth (UK) launched a campaign “Bee Cause”, calling on the British government to commit to a “bee action plan to save bees and save the country billions of pounds in the future.”

If you’ve been listening to the news over the past couple of years you’ll have no doubt heard that the decline in bee populations isn’t just a UK problem, it’s worldwide. A combination of issues from colony collapse disorder, parasites and shortages in habitats are being blamed but whatever the cause, it’s serious.

Bees aren’t just about honey – they help to pollinate strawberries, nuts, herbs, coffee and cotton to name just a fraction of items we use daily.

According to research released this *week it would cost the UK £1.8 billion every year to hand-pollinate crops without bees – 20% more than previously thought. That’s just one country, imagine that on a global basis. Finances apart, can you image a world without bees? I don’t even want to…

In recent years Britain has lost over half the honey bees kept in managed hives and wild honey bees are nearly extinct.  Solitary bees are declining in more than half the areas they’ve been studied and some species of bumblebee have been lost altogether. These figures are replicated around the world.

One reason for the bee decline is a shortage of natural habitats, so Friends of the Earth have outlined simple steps people can take in their gardens to help provide it:

  • Sow bee-friendly seeds and plant bee-friendly flowers in your garden such as mixed wildflowers packets, single-flowering roses, open and flat-headed flowers like verbena and yarrow and tubular-shaped flowers such as foxgloves.

    Image courtesy of Gardeners World

  • Create a place to nest for solitary bees by piling together hollow stems and creating a ‘bee hotel’.
  • Try to provide a small amount of rainwater in a shallow bird bath or tray which honeybees need to keep their hive at the right temperature.

So please “bee aware” and encourage these very special insects into your gardens – they really do need all the help we can give them.

Have you come across bees in trouble? Last year we spotted a large bumblebee covered in parasites and clearly in trouble. It was distressing to observe but by providing flowers with pollen that haven’t been sprayed with chemicals, perhaps it will help to keep the bees strong and more able for pests and diseases. It might be a small step, but it’s something.

 

* conducted by The University of Reading on behalf of Friends of the Earth (Reference: Breeze et al, 2012 – Chapter 4.) 

Walking in Wildflowers

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Poppies

When did you last walk through a field of wildflowers? 



I’m searching through my memory bank and can only think of a handful of occasions that I personally have (and I’m a country gal), yet they’ve been around since neolithic times, so Sandro Cafollo of Design by Nature (www.wildflowers.ie) was explaining to us today. 


Cornflowers



From their origin to ground preparation, weeds, growing conditions, identification and the lack of support to growers, Sandro passionately  shared some of his vast knowledge on growing crops of herbs and wildflowers to an interested group of us near Urlingford in Tipperary. 


Sadly many native Irish wildflowers are now extinct or on the endangered list mostly as a result of weedkillers, farm machinery or heavy cropping. From corncockle to corn chamomile, wild cornflower and scarlet pimpernell – many of us will never see these flowers growing wild again.


Self Heal, Oxe Eye Daisy  & Mallow

So why did Sandro give up his time for free today, give away seeds (and even fork out for a port-a-loo in a field)?  It was in the hope that we would help to spread the word…

Wildflowers are great!

They can be grown commerically in Ireland as an alternative to four legged ‘crops’ and are incredibly important for biodiversity, encouraging a vast range of insects and butterflies. They can be used around fields, on verges or banks, as alternatives to mown lawns or just as cash crops – and more of us could be growing them. 

Corn Marigolds


To grow wildflowers successfully however, involves more than just buying a packet of seeds and scattering them a few weeks later, but that’s not for here or now (if you’re looking for more information go check out Sandro’s website). His passion for growing native Irish wildflowers was infectious, carrying us inquisitively and happily throughout the day. 


Mallow & Oxeye Daisy



The following quote from their website explains why they feel it’s so important to grow Irish seeds:-

Our thoughts on imported ‘so called’ wildflowers: 

Retailers and online sellers are selling American, Chinese, or European flora claiming that they are wildflowers. 
These imports are not native Irish wildflowers and they are not suitable for nature conservation, they may not survive beyond the first year.  Often these products are not even wildflowers from other countries instead they are cultivated flowers. You will end up paying for expensive packaging and cheap substitutes. If in doubt, ask the horticulture division of Bord Bia, or the Department of Agriculture, for a list of growers of wildflowers in Ireland (and not just sellers). Watch out for false claims with seed mixtures containing cultivated flowers posing as wildflowers. When you buy native sourced Irish species they flower at the same time as the wildlife that visits the plants, native flowers can survive your local climatic conditions. Your purchases supports jobs in Ireland.


Stacia bought the wine …

So after a day outside in good company, catching up for ‘real’ with social media friends Margaret from Old Farm , Stasia from Our Smallholding  and Lilly from Silverwood, I’ll shortly be sitting relaxing with a mug of tea, planning where we can sow a few colourful Irish wildflowers of our own… and I’ll be wholeheartedly encouraging anyone I know to consider growing or stocking them too.