Ribbons in nature and the garden: lichen and Witch hazels

There’s a beauty about lichen don’t you think?  There’s one type today I noticed that looked to me as if they were a cluster of  fine silk ribbons held loosely together on a bare stem.

  

I am no expert on lichens  - I just find them  intriguing.  They certainly are interesting subjects to photograph.  The ancient Egyptians  found them useful too – they packed their mummies in them and before modern dyes were invented people mixed the different coloured lichens to make natural dyes. 

So many walk past these trees each day along the lade and I wonder how many notice the finer details as they walk along that little path.  I could not walk past this little collection of lichen without taking a photograph.  The bare branches are coming to life again with new burgundy buds along with the melody of colour and texture from the different lichens clustered together.

And then as I reach home I see more ribbons but this time in my own garden in the form of the many witch hazels I grow.  Welcome to my winter larder!

Its another melody of colour  as the witch hazels are starting to break into full bloom along with the delicate scent of the witch hazel  Pallida.

 What are your favourite melodies in nature?

Vacancies at the New Lacewing Hotel

 We’re opening a hotel pending site surveys in the easterly part of the garden  once the weather improves  in the beautiful rolling countryside down by the Lade. Its not just any sort of hotel its 5 star luxury accommodation all made in natural cedarwood.  We’re very picky around here about our clientele and all the Green Lacewings in Perthshire and beyond are very welcome to set up residence.
 

We’ve got a great holiday (lifetime) package for all you Lacewings.  We are going to be offering free board and keep from about August 2010 onwards but until then the leaves‘nbloom garden can offer a great daily banquet on condition that you lay your lovely eggs in the garden (about 300 per lacewing would do nicely rather than American express or visa)  and allow your little ones <cough> larvae to roam freely in the garden  where they can feast on our lush greenfly (that’s the chef’s speciality by the way)   (Lacewing eggs in picture to the right)

We’ve got a special menu already planned for the children and each larvae can eat as much as they like but based on past customer surveys  we recommend that you get them to eat between 1000 and 10,000 aphids while you stay with us. The more the better!

and the adult menu  

All this will give you adults the energy needed to produce even more eggs in the romatic settings of the Leaves ‘n bloom garden.

Catch of the Day

The children/larvae will be encouraged to dress up in camouflage  and play hide and seek every day – there will be plenty of bark, moss and the dead bodies of aphids (their previous victims from the day before!)  provided ready to be added to the sharp spines on their backs so that they can sneak up on their prey and catch them unawares.

Check in Time

Once August comes around the Hotel will open its doors to you all where there will be freshly laid straw to shelter in (not sure if pheromones will be have been added to the straw)  and to help you find your way to the rooms/chambers the Hotel will be placed outside near a direct source of light since we hoteliers  know that you lacewings are attracted by the light.

Our Guarantee

We give you the guarantee that the garden is chemical free and if the leaves ‘n bloom garden temperature drops down to extreme like it did this winter then your gardening friend “Blotanist Rosie” will move the Hotel into the garage until the weather improves.

Don’t forget Great deals  at the Lace Wings Hotel. 

Book through Rosie the Blotanist with instant confirmation.

photos of Lacewing from wiki commons here, here and here

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The Lade from inside the Ramada Jarvis Hotel, Upper City Mills, Perth

Today we went into town to do a little shopping. So with the camera in my bag and Mr Leaves 'n bloom alongside we went on a little detour going home and we ended up at the Ramada Jarvis Perth Hotel at the Upper City Mills in Perth.  

In a previous article about the Lade I mentioned this hotel and if you remember - this hotel has something unique about it as you will soon discover.

The building is covered in scaffolding for mainentenance work so no outside photo was taken today of the hotel but inside we met a lovely receptionist called Gillian who was very helpful and allowed me to take some photos from the hotel garden and inside the main reception area and lounge.

We first went out into the garden.  You could see where they had still kept some of the implements for the mills hanging from the wall and there were some stone mill wheels and some metal cogs (like wheels but with teeth) also in the garden.

All you could hear in the garden  was the sound of the Lade flowing at such a great speed and you can see from the photo below that the Lade spilts in two in the hotel garden.

But where were those 2 channels  flowing to? There is only one place they could be flowing  and thats straight into the hotel as you can see from the video below. Its just over 1 minute in length
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Just imagine sitting at the last port view - its a table with seating around it in the Lounge Bar.


Gillian the receptionist also gave me a leaflet that the Ramada Jarvis Hotel have produced themselves for their guests. I have taken some of that information and placed it here.

The History of The City Mills

The history of the City Mills dates back to the 10th Century with the city lade, the source of the water that you can see today flowing through the hotel.  There is evidence that suggests that it pre-dates the reign of Malcom Canmore, who famously deposed Macbeth and married Saint Margaret of Scotland.

The lade supplied the motive power to the mills.  A man-made waterway, it flows from the River Almond at Almondbank, north of the city, a distance of around four and a half miles before emptying into the River Tay just below the "Old Bridge".

Legend has it that the lade was dug in one night by the military and was therefore named the "Kings Lade".  What is know is that it was part of the defences of the medieval city of Perth.

 Below the Lower City Mills currently occupied by the Tourist Information Bureau, the lade originally split into two with one branch following the line of the modern South Methven Street, Canal Crescent and Canal Street.  This branch silted up regularly and fell out of use in the 19th Century.  The other branch currently flows underneath Mill Street.  It can be seen at the end of Skinnergate, one of Perth's oldest streets.  Nearby, in Alberts Close, stands the last remnant of the Old City Wall.

The first mill on this site appeared around the begining of the 12th Century.  They were apparently gifted to the crown in the following century but in 1375, by Fen charter, the mills were given to the people of the city by King Robert the Third, and they were renamed "The City Mills".

The area to the west of the lade housed flour, meal and barley mills, kilns and a granary and an oil mill.  Together, with ownership of the waterfall at Tulloch, all provided an important part of burgh revenues.

Throughout the centuries the mills suffered quite a few fires but each time the town rebuilt them. The last, indeed the only record of repairs to the Mills was in 1879 - the cost being 11  pounds.  In the twenthieth century they fell into disuse, finally closing in the 1930's.

In the 1970's the derelict building was developed as a hotel with help from the Civic Trust Scheme.  The award winning conversion has retained many of the features of the old mill.  Guests can follow the flow of water through the hotel as it splits to power the wheel opposite Reception and joins and splits again in the Lounge Bar where the oldest parts of the structure can be viewed through one of the viewing ports.

Here are some photos I took today from inside the Ramada Jarvis reception area of those viewing ports.

 

viewing port on floor as well as to the left side

and inside the Lounge Bar.

The Lade then flows out of the hotel again at the Granary flowing towards Lower City Mills.

Here you can see one of the many old mill wheels against the walls of the old buildings.

Then there is this wall plaque full of more information which you can read below:

The view as you look over the wall

I hope you enjoyed reading alittle more about the lade.  There is so much of the lade that I have not even walked along and only a few weeks ago discovered a new path in the rural part which  I will be writing about soon along with its flora and fauna. The only wildlife visible today were two mallards.  Further out of town Kingfishers, Heron, Moorhens, bats and much more have their habitats along the Lade.

Meet the only herd of Reindeer in Britain: Wordless Wednesday

My contribution to Wordless Wednesday .  I was surprised how friendly these reindeer were on the road. They freely roam looking for lichen and each reindeer in Scotland is given an individual name.

You can read more about these beautiful reindeer here

My leafy fillers in the Winter Garden

 Lets set the stage .............

Once I had my own home and started a garden of my own I never gave foliage much of a thought.  It was flowers and more flowers and the showier the better.  Then I would look out over the  garden during the winter months and  it would look desolate - all the herbaceous was tucked away under the soil for the winter and  I could just see some dead seed heads and had some fading memories of the previous season. I was a member of the cottage garden society in those days so primarily it was herbaceous that I grew. The only piece of foliage  I had was a 7 foot boundary  evergreen Privet hedge to look out on that the previous owner had grown  after World War 2.

Thankfully I learned from my past mistakes and now  foliage does have a role to play.  Over the years I have come to realise that during the winter months it should have the leading role in my garden and at this time of year the flowers are in the chorus line.

During the past month I have really started to appreciate any colour that there has been in the garden. White is lovely for a short time but its quite a harsh colour on the eyes and I really started to miss the all the different shades of  green.   I have quite a few evergreens in the garden - sadly some look really rough just now after our worst winter in the UK for decades but others are making a great impact just now.

The Leading Roles in Foliage Follow Up

This is my first every entry for the Foliage Follow up hosted by Pam over at Digging  so  I suppose I can't start  without a mention about my heucheras.  I'm a heucheraholic and I have started collecting them as  I love their dramatic foliage. For a long time all I grew was Palace Purple and I still have that old timer in the garden but over the last few years more and more of the newer varieties from America have been introduced to the UK and its one plant I can't resist and there will always be room for just one more.  They are all clambouring for centre stage but for today I have just chosen two.  

Another star in the garden just now is the Leucothoe. I have 2 varieties in the garden.  The more mature plant is Leucothoe fontanesiana Rainbow.  For the past few weeks all I could really see peeping through the snow were some of its red branches but over the last few days it has now revealed its rainbow coloured leaves......... (and there are a few little flower buds in there too). If this isn't a show stopper just now I don't know what is.  I love it and I really wish I had it closer to a window so that I could see it all the time.

 I bought the 2nd Leucothoe last Spring so it is still quite small - in hindsight I should have bought the bigger sized pot at the local garden centre!   This cultivar only came unto the market in 2008/09 and it is called Leucothoe Axillaris "Curley Red".   I originally bought it for a container as its recommeded for container gardening but this autumn I planted it in the garden beside my heuchera marmalade and it makes a lovely contrast of textures. It has thick leathery leaves which have little ridges along them and the whole leaf curls to one side.  As each season passes by it changes the colour of its leaves.  In wintertime its leaves are a dark burgundy colour which then changes to green by Spring and throughout Summer and Autumn those green leaves start to change to deeper reds.

Some more cast members for Foliage Follow Up



They all want in on the act today but I've selected just a few more for this months show.............
I have acquired a yellow bamboo in the garden.  I did not buy it so I am not sure what cultivar it is - lets just say it arrived in the garden from just over the fence.  It seemed to like the soil beyond its boundary and decided to spread some of its roots and set up home here. I was a very grateful choreographer as I knew that my neighbour paid quite alot of money for hers and I knew just the perfect place for it.   Since then I have had to get out the saw from the toolbox to cut some of the roots as a spade is useless for that job!  and I now have 3 of them growing in the garden.

I also have lots of dwarf conifers in the front garden.  As you can see from the picture they really do stand out at this time of year and give the garden such structure.  The one mistake I did make in the back garden in its early years is not incorporating some more conifers into the plan but I felt that the dwarf ones would get lost in there amongst all the trees and shrubs and I did not want to grow one for it then to get too big and have to dig it out after many years.  I've seen too many overgrown conifers in peoples gardens in the past.

Yesterday I bought a Taxus Baccata Aurea.   Not sure yet where its final home will be ............ I only wish I had bought this beautiful conifer years ago! Another purchase was this unnamed Acer in the sale area.  I hope once it comes into leaf I will be able to tell which one it is but I bought it because of its vivid red stems. So if anyone thinks they know which one it is please let me know.

Ilex Crenata  - the Japanese Holly Bush.  Its like a little ray of sunshine in the scree bed at the front just now. Its a plant that will probably outlive me as they are known to live for over 100 years.  The Japanese love to prune these evergreens into cloud bushes. Mine's not too old so it does not need any pruning yet. I bought it in a sale last year and it was pot bound and not looking in the best of health so I have been nurturing it  and hope that this year it will have finally settled its roots and start to show some new growth. I've bought some RootGrow that David Austin recommends for his roses and other shrubs  and even tho the shrub was planted last year you can still water this unto the roots.  I am hoping that adding these mycorrhizal fungi will give this plant the boost of confidence it needs to shine on the garden stage. I would be really interested in hearing if any of you have used this product before.

and the final curtain call goes to


The PaperBark Maple - Acer Griseum 
just who could resist that wonderful bark at this time of year?

Happy Foliage Day!

My Winter Nectar Larder: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Food is scarce just now for our wildlife but there are some nectar rich plants in flower just now in my garden and just in time for my second Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.


I am just loving the sound of  "drip drip drip"  in the drains outside now as the snow is finally melting and is finally revealing some of the winter blooms.   I have to say I'm relieved that it's outdoor drips rather than indoor drips as my next door neighbour and another have had frozen pipes this week.  And it could be worse  - up at Aviemore today (north of us) the ski centre had to close as they had too much snow. 

For 11 months of the year this plant is non-discript.  Few visitors would even notice it but once mid January comes everyone notices it.                                                                             The Saracococca is ready to fill part of my garden with its glorious scent. Its not called Sweet Box for nothing. But it sure does not smell like buxus even tho it is related to that plant.  (I'm  not sure if any of you have smelt buxus but the leaves smell of cats urine! ).  Sarcococca I am glad to say has a scent a bit like Lily of the Valley.    I just hope the weather improves so that I can appreciate the scent outside!  Just bring one flowering stem into the house and there's enough potent fragrance to fill the room and it sure does get the pollinators to notice it!                                                                                    Mine is called S. hookeria var. digyna from what I can remember and it grows under my flowering carpet standard rose.  It never minds the shade or dry roots during the rest of the year and stays evergreen.   It certainly is very hardy after what this winter has thrown at it  but I suppose it has to be considering it grows wild in China and the Himalayas.  It does sucker but thats a great asset if you like sharing your plants with fellow gardeners.  Mine is growing into a good sized clump now.  

The Mahonia has featured quite a bit in a few blog postings and last months Garden Bloggers Bloom Day  but these are the last of the flowers for this year.  Most of its flowers were badly frosted this year so not sure if it will produce many of those grapelike bunches of fruit later in the year.

I've got one of my Witchhazels in flower.  This one is Jelena and regular readers here know that this has featured in quite a few posts recently.                                                                                              My other witchhazels - Orange Beauty and Pallida are still in tight bud but Diane started to open her buds today...... no doubt she will feature in next months Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

In my front garden  scree bed the snow has retreated and now  has revealed my Primrose Emily. I'm hoping that lots of its yellow petals will have unfurled by the end of the weekend.   This is my favourite of all primroses.  It reminds me of walking down The Fairy Glen which was a little wooded lane beside my Grandads home where lots of wild primrose grew.  In the UK it is being sold just now in most garden centres.  It sure is hardy and year after year it blooms in Winter and then again in the Autumn.  I have lots of them scattered throughout the garden.

There is still winter interest in my skimmia's tho the birds do not like the berries on the S. Reevesiana. 

The Christmas Rose I am sure has loads and loads of buds still under the snow. This one looks alittle rough after being blanketed in 1 ft of snow for nearly a month.    

My Viburnum Eve Price ( no pic) which featured in last months Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is still in flower tho the leaves are a greenish black colour and the yellow Winter Jasmine has loads of buds waiting to open once the temperature increases.

 I might not have much in bloom just now in the garden but look at the lovely Bullfinch  who is coming in to feed in the garden.   I love his colouring and its not very often I get to see one of these in the garden.   The photo was taken from my kitchen window at an angle as I leaned over the kitchen sink so the quality is not so good............. never mind remembering  when I last cleaned the outside of the window! 

Its also Fertilizer Friday today which Tootsie Time is hosting so I am featuring one of my orchids today for that meme as it needs a little feed.


This is also my entry for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day over at May Dreams Garden and my first entry for Blooming Friday over at Roses and Stuff. 


So if you want to see who's flauting what then head over to those 3 blogs for the latest links and become a tourist for the day visiting other blogs.