Radio 3 with its Sunday programme, where birds or animals may be included, has a very boring cock pheasant's call through its programme, but I am not complaining. Today's memory that came through on F/B was Wind Anemones, they have such a lovely story as to how they acquired the name.
Its actual name of anemone is borrowed from the Greek legend of Anemone Coronia, because the flowers nod and shake in the wind, and the Greeks called it Daughter of the Wind.
I can remember first coming across them in a walk through a wood up on the Bath downs, their white starryiness (not a proper word, but when I googled it I found it in this blog from 2010 and Sharon (morning's minion) ;) And then of course David Abram's words.
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| Celandine, violet and wind anemone |
My next buy will be herbs, people grow things round here in the public places but there is not a decent garden centre to be had, and as I hear the chorus from my family what about Gordon Riggs. It is a massive retail space, according to the blurb, plants do not figure prominently. We have arrived at the point in this country with flowers and plants brought in from other countries, the gentle art of growing plants for love, thrown out the window, like so many things.... I do exaggerate occasionally though!
Being able to pick fresh herbs is something I miss, true Lidl will supply you with a little pot of something, but it dies after a couple of days, no love there.
It brings to mind scent, marjoram, thyme, mint, and rosemary, not forgetting lavender. Years ago there was a fashion in pot-pourri, you collected the flowers from the garden, dried them and then put them in a pot with a suitable preservative and an essence of a flower oil. Truthfully the scent never lasted long and has probably died out, though I always dry flowers to keep in a pretty bowl. Used to keep the many coloured stones my language students bought for me as a present, you could run your fingers though them, their colours representing the geology of this Earth.
Scented geranium leaves are also another source of grabbing a few moments of a delicious smell, here Sarah Raven's Rose of Attar pelargonium. The flower is small and unobtrusive not like its showier cousins.
You can't beat fresh herbs. Do you have a sunny windowsill for them? I'm assuming not much of a garden where you are now.
ReplyDeleteI love Pelargoniums and managed to get a little root from one growing wild along the bank nearby. It's got a veined pink flower - very pretty.
Yes there is a warm window sill, though there is a little backyard as well. I find dried herbs a sort of second best to fresh ones. They have planted chives in odd corners round the town, but then dogs!!
DeleteThose pelargoniums provides delicious flavours in jams/jellies and liquers.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I will try it Tigger if I ever get round to making more jellies.
DeleteI have a few hardbs growing amongst my herbaceous plants - mint - keep your eye on it or it will swamp everything but a sprig in with new potatoes when they are cooking makes them taste divine.
ReplyDeleteThink there is mint here, lemon balm of course, but that treats itself as a weed. Mint likes to spread, it has an unruly nature Pat.
DeleteWe had a mint that didn't spread, it struggled to survive! It was a catnip plant, and every neighborhood cat stopped to chew on it.
ReplyDeleteThe cat drug, or is it an aphrodisiac I wonder, anyway humans can't use it ;)
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