Fluffy Pom Poms and Golden Pearls Acacia dealbata

Fluffy yellow pom pom blooms with a delicate perfume and the most wonderfully shaped leaves is what I'm showcasing today on leavesnbloom.

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Acacia dealbata - Mimosa Tree

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I don’t know if its hot loud or proud but it certainly is tropical, exotic and Mediterranean to me as it can only be grown in a conservatory here in NE Scotland but probably very common the rest of you.  

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You’ve heard of Japan’s cherry blossom flowering date maps  during the Spring well Acacia blooms have their own Spring Mimosa trail.  Its an 80 mile route in Southern France called  La Route du Mimosa where the slopes, hills, valleys and gardens are laden with  blossom between January and March. There are also many parades and a Miss Mimosa  for the season. 

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The perfume must be “scentsational” wafting through the air.

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We’ve Captain Cook to thank for bringing this little twig of sunshine to Europe as he brought it back from his travels in Australia and my friend for allowing me to take  photos of hers.

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Short and sweet today!

Short as  its usually  seen as short stems in florist bouquets here and sweet for its delicate scent. 

An “escential” for the conservatory or do you grow it in your garden?

I was unaware that this post had been linked to the Festival of Trees monthly meme for May. Its a lovely compliment when someone really likes what you write and tells others about it.  BUT   if you are visiting from that link please note that the author of this blog is a Christian and does not associate in anyway with Beltane festivities.

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"They shall make an ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, Exodus 25:10

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Follow the Yellow Brick Road on Wildflower Wednesday

No f1 hybrids on this walk today just the pretty little woodlanders along Perth lade. Just now its like walking along the yellow brick road in the land of Oz  as there are the most prolific blooms of the Lesser Celandine in the hedgerows and banks along with the first of the Dandelions.

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I am slowly learning about the natives in this area and I notice that every month there is something new to take a photo of and find out about.  Naming them still can be a challenge never mind trying to get a photograph of some of them that isn't blurred! but its great fun to finally find out their correct botanical names and maybe a little folklore to go along with it. 

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I never knew about the  Wildflower Wednesday  meme that Gail hosts over at Clay and Limestone until today and I am just so thrilled to be taking part in it.  Its always on the fourth Wednesday of the month.

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The first plant that grows abundantly around here is the Wood Anemone.  Its other name is the windflower and its little buds nod in the wind.  Down at the lade the flower buds are tinged with blushing pink.

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While in my garden they are pure white.

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Dandelions are now in abundance, and the odd wild muscari neglectum grows along the old railway line and a plant that I think is a Veronica but I’m not entirely sure grows through the grass on the verge next to the road.  

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The White dead nettle (lamium album)  has started to bloom this week and is ever so attractive to the bees as it is just oozing with nectar.

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In tiny little pockets grows the Common Dog Violet (Viola reviniana) its a plant that is easily missed as it grows along the grassy banks and as each shower of rain penetrates the ground the grass just grows longer and longer masking the little flowers.

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One that certainly is not easy to miss just now is the Lesser Celandine.  It grows everywhere along the lade.  Its like a golden carpet of blooms just now.

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And finally the Coltsfoot (Tussilage farfara).

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I love the way it holds its blooms on its thick erect stems.  Its been used since ancient times  to treat coughs and chest infections (Tussil is latin for cough).

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But I need help identifying this.........

Can anyone tell me what this is flowering?.  Its very sappy and the sap just oozes out from the stems.  I’m intrigued by it.  Those markings go right down the stem and its about 10 inches in height with no leaves showing growing in clumps. I noticed too that the stems collapse quite easily.  


Its Field Horse Tail (Equisetum arvense)  also known as Marestail ( not the kind of thing you ever want in your garden - its the most terrible weed as its roots grow 2 yards deep!).  It was growing along the old railway line.  I'm used to seeing it in leaf but this was the first time ever that I saw the flower.

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My woodland collection for this month is over and I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the native British plants.   I wonder will I find something rare some day?

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When you find a native growing in your garden do you leave it alone to flourish or do you call it a weed and promptly remove it?

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The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come , and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; Song of Solomon 2:12

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Hellebore Haven

There’s one hellebore in my garden who is older than I am and I’ve been meaning to introduce you all to him for ages.

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He’s unnamed but cherished.  He once grew in my granddads garden and on all my travels from one new garden to another a little piece has always followed me and spread his roots.

In my scottish garden it has seeded and  those seedlings flowered this year for the first time.  I call those seedlings “Deweys White” in memory of him.
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My mum also has a few clumps of his hellebores in her garden as well.  This is one of her clumps – in the back garden the spots inside the petals are green while the clump in the front garden have red/pinkish spots just like mine.

                                                                                                                                                                     

From my mums back garden

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My mum painted this picture of one of his hellebores and the painting greets all my visitors in the front hallway of my home.

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The hellebore season is ebbing away in my garden.  Colours that once were so bright are now taking on touches of sepia and some turning distinctively  chocolaty in colour. With seed heads that look like daggers bulging with their wares awaiting the day when they will scatter their offspring around the garden.

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 Below are my pink orientalis hellebores in the garden. They share the garden along with a few white hellebore nigers and  two burgundy ones.

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Pink Orientalis, Anemone Picotee and Tutu

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I just love the striking foliage from Hellebore Winter Moonbeam (you would know for sure that one of its parents was a sterni type from the lovely marbling on the leaves). 

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Under my silver weeping pear tree

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Just now mine are awaiting their yearly top dressing of organic fertilizer.  

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I have loved viewing  the different hellebores this spring on all of your gardening blogs and this year I would love to add a double flowering type to my collection.

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Have you any hellebores on your wish list?

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I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.
-  Alan Havhamess

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A Postmortem, A Challenge and a little Theatre

This is the good, the bad and the ugly today but not in that order!

I am so glad the winter is now behind us.  I've been told that it was the coldest in this area since 1962 and it certainly has left a sorry tale behind in gardens in my locality.  One of the main topics of conversation these days between  us neighbours is what plants didn't make it through - its postmortem time!  As for most shrubs in ceramic pots once the thaw arrived they literally burst their stems open at their bases just above soil level  while clay pots just disintegrated and left shards of clay all around their bases.

Maybe Beethovens death march should be played as you read along with this!

Some of my casualties like the Choysia Sundance no longer live here along with a Fatsia Japonica (they had been growing in ceramic pots on the patio) a large Euonymus, a Flowering Carpet pink rose, a French Lavender Fathead,  Leycesteria formosa and a pink Cistus. 

One disappointment was my new Acer Sango Kaku (the one with the red stems)  but it was under a 5 yr guarantee so I’m not out of pocket with that. 

But I was shocked to loose 4  pyracanthas  – 2 yellow and 2 red berry ones.  My neighbour had the same problem and the only one that seems to have survived in our gardens  is the orange one – so obviously its the hardiest of them all.

Likewise there are no Ceanothus alive around here unless newly planted.  I had bought "Skylark" many years ago as it was supposed to be the hardiest type – just not hardy to prolonged periods up to –17.4 °F.  It needed to go anyway – the  Amelanchier Alnifolia Obelisk and Physocarpus Diablo were placing it in more and more shade as they grew bigger each year.

My  Halimiocistus  growing in the scree bed – got dug out on Saturday evening as you can see in the picture below. I have plans for that area. A witchhazel is going in there and plant troughs (converted from fishboxes with a type of hypertufa covering) and some new stepping stones.

Winter 2010 Casulaties

My Nandina Firepower – its a goner for sure.

This Fatsia is staying as I think it will come back – those are green buds on the top and I'll cut off those dead leaves once I get time to start gardening in the Japanese Garden.

Mahonia Charity

Not so sure about the Mahonia Charity – it is getting worse looking by the day and Mahonia Lionel Fortescue in the front garden is looking much the same. I've lost nearly 2 feet at the top of Charity and more of the stems and leaves are turning yellow and falling off.  

I've noticed that some of the plants  I thought a month ago had survived have just in the past 2 weeks passed away completely. 

I have to be thankful that I did not lose more.  The Camelia W. Donation just about made it and I'm still not sure if my flowering carpet standard yellow rose and the ground cover one of the same variety will pull through - I think they are on life support just now. Surprisingly some little Diascia 'Apricot Delight" are showing signs of new life.

The Challenge 

This is really ugly bit - I've not worked in this part of the garden since last autumn. You can certainly tell from the photo - the local cats have been the only ones turning over the soil.

Looking down the border from the public footpath

I’ve never really been content  with this area. Most people extended their monobloc driveways to make them wider using this patch of ground but I wanted it as a flower border.   I made a mistake here that I’m sure everyone has made at one time or another.  I filled the area with plants and thought it would be lovely.   After a year I wasn’t happy with the effect – changed locations of some plants but it still did not work.  Every year I have tried something different.  I have to stop!

I should have designed this without thinking about  plants at first and thought of shape, curves and paths when it was just a blank canvas and just a piece of lawn.   When the house was built we had a terrible rabbbit problem and for 1 year I had a lovely front garden design - without any plants in it.    I had a shaped lawn and scree beds with different heights and levels all created and it still looked good. The structure was there and I knew where my focal points were to be and the planting part a year later was so easy to do and it looked great from the begining.

A view looking down at the public footpath

I also should  have had this designed from the pedestrian’s viewpoint on the public footpath looking down into the garden.  I think I made the mistake when planting initially by looking at the border from the driveway.  From the footpath there certainly is more depth to play with.  I could have a little path through this area leading unto the other path.......... but I'm not really sure what I want!  Sorry I'm beginning to ramble.........

Now I have an opportunity - so much has died in this border.

I've always regretted planting my Viburnum Eve Price  here as I underestimated how big it would get.  Its too close to the Laburnum and even though when I scrape away alittle of the bark and see a little hint of green on the odd branch – can I really bear looking at this for the rest of the year like this?  I honesty don’t think I can. (It might take a couple of years to recover)

Another casualty in the same area is the pink hydrangea macrophylla – they don’t flower well anyway in the East of Scotland compared to the West Coast and this one certainly isn’t going to flower for at least another year or two as there is only one tiny bit of growth at the base…………..  I think its on its way out -  its not earning its keep!

As for my Hypericum Tricolour  also in this border – it has a few stems that have rooted just a little further from the main plant so I will rescue those and pot them on  ……………….but you’ve guessed it – the main plant on its way out too.

The little hedge at the boundary is still alive – its a yellow Potentilla hedge – but in the shadier part towards the fence it never ever flowers and looks all straggly……….. it hides a wire mesh fence here but I’m thinking of digging it out  and growing some yellow variagated ivy up the wire mesh instead.( I've plenty of rooted cuttings)

I’ve moved things around this area so much over the years that the bulbs are now scattered throughout the area and it really does look messy and untidy with the odd muscari here and there and for it being the first part of the garden to greet people by foot – its really is a bit of an embarrassment to me.

So this is my challenge  for in the month of May – to get this area finally sorted - at least on paper. I have a lovely Laburnum  tree in this border and a well established Pieris Forest Flame  which I will have to work around along with a beautiful  peach Azalea mollis  but most of the other shrubs are young enough to move if I do it in the next few weeks and no doubt dig up more bulbs.

The car parks right close to the edge of the border and anyone in the passenger seat has to get out and watch carefully where they walk – normally I end up in the flowerbed.  Plus I can’t have anything too high  near the edge in case it  blocks the car doors from opening.

So here’s where I would love some suggestions.  If this was your little patch what would you do with it? I need some inspiration. How can I create a little bit of theatre with limited funds? 

Beethovens Ode to Joy could be played about now!

Just incase you all think the rest of my front garden is like this too I have 4 different areas of front garden – here’s my favourite just now.  Its the border where the Pyrus salicifolia pendula  is the main focal point  and it's in bud just now. The photos don't really show the size of the area but the border is 50 feet long.

50ft long border featuring a Silver Weeping Pear Tree

It looks like it going to be a busy week in the garden for me. I was out sowing grass seed in the garden just after 7 am this morning.  Have a great week out and about everyone and I look forward to your suggestions.

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. CS Lewis

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A Real Life Narnia Trail: Giants, Stone Tables and Digory

Last weekend I started to lead you all on a CS Lewis Trail through East Belfast and the Mountain of Mournes which is an area known as the “real life Narnia” as the scenic beauty inspired CS Lewis to write about the land of Narnia.  If this is your first visit here you can read  and view the pictures here.  Just let me finish off our little trip around the Mournes with the following:

Giants and Stone Tables

Northern Ireland is known for its myths and legends especially of giants and like myself “Jack” would have been told those stories as a child.  The Legananny Dolmen in Co Down is supposed to mark a giant’s grave and the word “dolmen” is an ancient name meaning a “Stone Table”.

Thanks to Kitty from Into My Own for allowing me to use her 2 photos above of the stone table at Leganarry Dolmen.

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As for the big boulder overlooking Carlingford Lough at Rostrevor  - I was told as a child that the famous giant Finn McCool  got into a fight with Ruscaire the Ice Giant and this is supposed to be one of the boulders they threw at each other across the Lough.  Its called  the Cloughmore Stone or as the locals call it “The Big Stone”:  I spent many a Saturday afternoon up at the stone on family picnics.


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That part of Rostrevor that overlooks Carlingford Lough is my idea of Narnia”. C.S. Lewis.

 [source of picture]

 

A painting of the Cloughmore Stone......

 and Cranfield on the shores of Carlingford Lough.......

 

Our Meeting With Digory

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We headed back into East Belfast again - this time to the Holywood Arches and just wait till you see who we bumped into. 

  No other than Digory!

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The bronze sculpture depicts CS Lewis in 1919 as Digory Kirke from The Magicians Nephew  opening the door of the wardrobe. 

The artist Ross Wilson, states that the sculpture seeks to 'capture the great ideas of sacrifice, redemption, victory and freedom for the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve' that lie at the heart of The Chronicles of Narnia.

“The image of the man walking towards the wardrobe is a stylized heroic image of C. S. Lewis representing the searcher: an almost 'everyman' setting out to find Aslan. I hope it will be seen as a pointer as well, to show that sometimes the greatest things can be found in the unlikeliest of places, a wardrobe, a world beyond a wardrobe”.

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and I just had to sit on the chair! 

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Ross Wilson “The chair may be used as a vehicle of transport; as the viewer is seated on the bronze chair they travel through Lewis via imagination to Narnia”.

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There are many inscriptions on the back of the wardrobe.

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A letter written by CS Lewis to Anne Walker aged 10.

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And amongst the monobloc paving are 4 large rectangles of granite in a square encasing the sculpture  (you can just about see them in the collage photos above in light grey). Each one of the granite blocs has one of the 4 lines engraved:  

• The Searcher Centenary Sculpture
• CS "Jack" Lewis - Ulsterman
• Writer, Scholar, Teacher, Christian
• Born 1898, Reborn 1931

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Wall Murals

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As you can see this post is lacking flowers today but there still is alot of colour to the next bit of the trail….
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Further on down the road from here just off the Newtownards Road are some wall murals.  Belfast is very famous for its wall murals – but today instead of there being paramilitary propaganda, hooded gunmen and riffles painted on the walls in Dee Street and Convention Place there are these in memory of CS Lewis…………..

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A Little Extra From Little Lea

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Since I started writing this article I have kindly been given permission to show you these photos – I will eventually be adding them to part 1 but Mr Richard James who took the photos was given a private tour of Little Lea with his son in law and he took a photo of the front of Little Lea and inside the little room where Jack and Warren played and where they had their telescope.

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I also made a little 3 minute video of our  trip  and added some special Narnia music called “Are you going to Narnia” to go along with it as we went off on our modern day "Dawn Treader".

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Do any of you know which day CS Lewis died on? – well you’ll never forget now! It was on the same day President JF Kennedy  was assassinated - November 22, 1963.  He died at The Kilns, Oxford, England.
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I hope you all enjoyed the little CS Lewis Trail.  There’s alot more than this to see on the trail but we only had a short time to spend in the area and we still had to do part of the St Patricks trail!

My friend Amber doing a series of quotes from CS Lewis over 31 days:

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Noelle at Ramblings From a Desert Garden has also written about CS Lewis and her trail around The Kilns in Oxford which not many folk get to see around but her Uncle is a college professor and lectures on CS Lewis and he was their tour guide.



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Related Posts
The Real Life Narnian Trail: Part One
A View from a Narnian Bench at Bangor Castle 

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There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
-- Genesis 6: 1-4

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The real life Narnia Trail: a Memorial to CS Lewis Pt1

Last weekend I found myself back in Ulster where I grew up and where CS Lewis spent part of his childhood.  Throughout his school, university and most of his adult life he returned every year to Northern Ireland and shared his love of the land with his newly wed.

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It was a place dear to his heart

'Heaven is Oxford lifted and placed in the middle of County Down'.

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A b ible inscription carved onto the rock at Tollymore Forest Park, Newcastle, Co Down in the Mourne Mountains

 (click here for CSLewis pdf)

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It was a  place where CS Lewis went exploring as a child and was inspired by the Mountains of Mourne.  He loved the granite mountain range with their peaks and valleys, rivers, forests and legends of giants.  Memories that in later life he would use  to write about the magical land of Narnia  in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” Chronicles. 

So would you like to come  on a little journey with me?   Lets open the wardrobe door just like Lucy and step inside only this time to find ourselves in County Down in Northern Ireland where it is known as the real life Narnia.

 

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Northern Ireland sadly was not known for its literary heroes in my childhood days but for only for conflict and the football legend George Best.  I knew the story of “The Lion, The witch and The Wardrobe” as a child and for me it was a story of escapism  into a land of make believe where even the animals spoke.  No one spoke of this author coming from Northern Ireland…………….. few even realised.

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the words of the famous song by Percy French

a coastline CS Lewis knew ever so well 

Here are some paintings of the area 

Foley's Bridge Tollymore

Stepping Stones across the Shimna River

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Dundela Villas

Clive Staples Lewis  (known as Jack)  was born in East Belfast on 29th November, 1898.

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His birth place at Dundela overlooked the Belfast Shipyard where The Titanic would soon be built.

The house is no longer there but here is an artists impression of what it would have looked like before the flats were built.

Dundela Villas
[Painting courtesy of Mr Alan Seaton]

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Little Lea

In 1905 he and his family moved to Little Lea.  This is the original location of the magic wardrobe.  There was one room upstairs where Jack and his brother Warren had a telescope where they used to watch the big ships going up and down Belfast Lough.

‘almost a character in my story. I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstair indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes and the noise of the wind under the tiles. Also of endless books...From our front door we looked down over wide fields to Belfast Lough and across it to the long mountain line of the Antrim shore.’

 

Little Lea is a private residence today so I wanted to be discreet as I took the photographs from the public footpath. The park that my children played in is across the road from here and I pushed a pram past this house for years.

This view shows the back of the house but  from the front of the house was a view down to Belfast Lough and the shipyard which he used to call “the Belfast Symphony” due to the pounding of the works down in the Harland and Wolfe yard.  When he lived here my children’s great grandfather was helping to build the Titanic only a few miles away.

The blue shield on the wall pinpoints the little room that Jack and Warren played in. 

This is also the home where the large wardrobe was that Jack and Warren used to hide inside.

The following picture is not mine but I have been given permission to add it here.  

Mr Richard James who took the photos was given a private tour of Little Lea with his son in law and he took a photo of the front of Little Lea and inside the little room where Jack and Warren played. 

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The Lion on the Hill - St Marks

St Mark's (Church of Ireland) first Rector was Rev Thomas Hamilton. He was the grandfather of CS Lewis. His parents were married here and he was baptised here by his grandfather on 29th January 1899. 

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and here is the window that he and his brother Warren presented to the parish in memory of their parents in 1933. Three Saints are shown, 2 of them gospel writers St Mark and St Luke on either side of St James.

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 From the Latin To the greater glory of God and dedicated to the memory of Albert James Lewis, who died on the 25th September 1929, aged 67, and also of his wife, Flora Augusta Hamilton, who died on the 23rd August 1908, aged 47.

The church is dedicated to the gospel writer Saint Mark where it is claimed that his body was brought to Venice and buried in the great church in San Marco.  His symbol, and the symbol of Venice is a winged lion and St Marks church has always called itself “The Lion on the Hill”. Its tower can be seen for miles around.

Even the door handle of the Old Church Rectory is in the shape of a lion.  CS Lewis would have used this door handle so many times in his childhood.  I am convinced that the link to St Marks lion, the biblical "Lion of the Tribe of Judah" and this door knob must have influenced him in later life while writing the chronicles about Aslan. I used to take my children to Mothers and Toddlers at this church each week.

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I hope you enjoyed the first part of my Narnian Trail.  My second part  will be in a few more days.

I  never realised until recently that CS Lewis did not write “The Magicians Nephew” until just before “The Final Battle”  – while book publishers these days would have us read that book first.   

What order have you read the Chronicles in? 

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Related Post:
A Real Life Narnian Trail: Giants, Stone Tables and Digory
A View from a Narnian Bench at Bangor Castle 

My friend Amber is doing 31 days of quotes from CS Lewis:

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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. CS Lewis

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