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Sally Nex

~ Sustainable food growing

Sally Nex

Tag Archives: plant identification

Torquay’s mystery plant

04 Wednesday Nov 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

plant identification, seed capsules, Torquay, Torre Abbey

I mentioned in my last post that not many of the plants in the Palm House at Torre Abbey in Torquay had labels. Of course the one I fell in love with was one of those without identification.

Trouble is, I want it. I really want it.

Any ideas?

It was the sight of those exquisite flowers which first caught my attention. I’ve never seen flowers weeping before.

Now those of you with a delicate disposition had better look away, as I’m about to show you quite the most eye-popping and frankly embarrassing seed capsules I’ve ever seen.

In case you wanted a closer gawp at those…

You can look again now. Here’s a more calming photo of the leaves.

It was about 5ft high or so, and multi-stemmed – a sort of loose clump, I suppose. I am deeply smitten, so if anyone out there knows what it is and can introduce me, I will be eternally grateful.

Baby ferns

01 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

ferns, native plants, plant identification, seedlings

There’s one garden I look after which I am very, very nearly as much in love with as my own little patch. You’ll probably understand why when I tell you it’s a 17th-century courtyard garden which has been tended by the same lady for, I think, over half a century. I’ve been helping her look after it for a mere four years of that, give or take a month, but its magic has seeped under my skin: it’s not a place you ever want to leave.

The owner – now 90 – is a very instinctive gardener, tucking in a little poppy here or an astrantia there so the effect is entirely artless. What’s more, she knows when to leave well alone: it’s full of self-sown Erigeron karvinskianus tumbling over walls and (she calls it ‘Bouncing Bet’) and fumitory (Corydalis lutea) peeping its butter-yellow flowers out from cracks in the masonry.

This week when I went over there I hunted out my favourites of all her little babies, to be found in the very shadiest and dampest nooks and crannies and tucked into crumbling walls or lichen-covered stones throughout the garden.

A little maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes) I think – my idents on ferns are more than a bit shaky at the best of times but when they’re this tiny (about 8cm across in this case) it’s even more iffy. But those wiry little black stems are like little necklaces hung with green jewels.

I’m entirely stumped by this one. I did think it was a lady fern (Athyrium felix-femina) but it’s a bit too feathery and not quite right somehow. But maybe that’s just how they are when they’re young. Anyone out there know for sure?

Not much doubt about what this is – it’s an Asplenium scolopendrium, the harts-tongue fern, an evergreen much beloved of plant designers as it obligingly stays (mostly) green all winter and puts up with dry conditions. I’d never seen it as a baby before – those little fat leaves are just too cute.
If I take nothing else from this garden, it’s this: the simple lesson to quit meddling. When nature throws up these little gems, who needs a gardener?

Identity parade #5 – the answers

17 Tuesday Mar 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

plant identification

Nigel rose admirably to the challenge and guessed correctly no’s 1, 2, and most amazingly 4 – and gets half-marks for nearly guessing no. 5, too. Well done that man. Here for those who are curious is the low-down on last week’s idents:

1.
Ruscus aculeatus – Butcher’s broom. Very useful plant to know as it grows in the deepest of deep shade and has some rather pretty red berries in autumn. Most interesting for me though was those flowers – the ‘leaves’ aren’t actually leaves at all, but modified flattened stems, and the flowers are borne right in the middle. Fascinating, and a little wierd.

2.
Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Nivalis’ – I used to grow this in my previous garden and the flowers are for me the most beautiful of all the Japanese quinces.

3.
Scilla mischtschenkoana – Pretty little thing, isn’t it? If you want to know the difference between this and the earlier-flowering Chionodoxa, or ‘Glory of the Snow’, look at the petals – scillas have a blue stripe down the middle, whereas the Chionodoxa don’t. At least, I think that’s the way round…

4.
Sequoiadendron giganteum – or more commonly, Californian redwood. Instantly recognisable as a tree – but this is the very lovely foliage. Slightly flattened and down-turned, and I think a bit of a revelation for those like me who haven’t got much further than looking with mouth agape at the trunk.

5.
Prunus ‘Okame’ – as Nigel said, there are so many flowering cherries and this could have been pretty much any one of them, so not really fair, but then who said this had to be fair?

There isn’t an ident for this week – we’re in the middle of a huge project at the moment (which is doing my head in and using up nearly every spare evening – my family is forgetting what I look like). So I thought, since we’re having a pause, that I’d hand out a few virtual bouquets to you virtuoso plantsmen and women out there:

Big bunch of blowsy roses to VP with 14 points
Consolation chrysanths (but nice ones that weren’t bought at the garage) to Nigel with 10
A handful of scented daffodils to Niels – 6
and a little posy of snowdrops to Anna – 5

back with some more wickedly annoying teasers soon….

Identity parade #5

06 Friday Mar 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

plant identification

A bit late this week but blame the spring lunacy that is my workload in the run-up to Chelsea… not quite as bad as those actually building gardens for the flower show but crazy nonetheless.

Anyway, just because I’m busy doesn’t mean I haven’t got time to set a few more plant-related teasers for you, courtesy of Capel Manor who supply the sometimes more than a little battered twigs, leaves and flowers from their garden in Enfield – no wonder they’re tatty by the time they get to us, the other side of London in Gunnersbury. Anyway, I thought last week’s were far too easy so I’m bowling you a few googlies this time.

1. (if you look very closely you’ll see the flowers – these are a giveaway clue)

2.

3.

4. (a bit unfair, really, as this is merely the foliage of a tree, but can you guess which one?)

5.
Enjoy!

Identity parade #4

25 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

plant identification

Right, that’s enough holidaying. Back to school.

(and I’ll try to post about something else in between times otherwise this is going to become the plant ident blog….)

A word of warning – there’s no theme this time and the examples we were given were utter pants, especially since most were bulbs and had mostly turned into sad little droops of slime long before we got to look at them. So one or two I’ve had to re-photograph from my own garden 😀

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Have fun!

Identity parade #3: the answers!

18 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

Cornus 'Kelseyi', Phormium, plant identification

There were only two you didn’t get in the end, so congrats to VP, Alice and Anna for your stalwart efforts. Here are the ones that foxed you to the last:

No. 1 was the diminutive Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’ – it often seems to be named as ‘Kelsey Dwarf’ (as it was at this nursery), wrongly I believe. Anyway, it’s a twiggy shrub about 60cm high and though not as colourful as its cousins in the dogwood family, it has an almost grass-like effect planted en masse and is quite lovely.

No. 5 many of you realised was a Phormium – but I needed the cultivar. It is in fact Phormium ‘Sundowner’ – a heady mix of purple, pink and slate-green but one of the nicer of the pinkish phormiums and not quite as garish as many of them seem to be.

That’s it for now, and you get a holiday this week as it’s half-term! Back next week with some more fiendish foliage for you to ponder over 😀

Identity parade #3

11 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

plant identification, Rochfords, wholesale nurseries

You got all the answers last week, so very well done to all who guessed right. We’ve been at a wholesale nursery, Rochfords, this week looking through their winter stock (generally a fine place, and I was particularly impressed that they do fruit bushes and trees as well as the usual suspects): so our plant idents came from container-grown plants waiting for sale.

Here goes:

1.

(it’s only about 2ft high and has a lot in common with the answers to (2) and (3))

2.

3. (it’s not the obvious cultivar – look closely at the stem colour)

4. (this shrub was inside the polytunnels and those flower buds open yellow)

5. You should be able to take a stab at nos 2 and 5 without any help from me. Enjoy!

Identity parade #2

04 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

plant identification

Well you could have been a little bit braver last week. Just one of you had a go at (correctly) guessing just one of the plants. Well done Anna. Here, for the rest of you, are the answers:


1. Hedera helix ‘Congesta’: upright form of ivy that grows like a shrub, to about 60cm high. Forms a very neat bush of dark green arrowhead-shaped leaves – but it’s quite hard to get hold of.


2. Hedera helix ‘Parsley Crested’, which used to be called H. h. ‘Cristata’, just to be annoying (that’s the name I knew it by). Lovely crinkly-edged margins to the leaves, and grows to about 2m.


3. Hedera colchica ‘Sulphur Heart’, which again went by another name once upon a time: this was H. c. ‘Paddy’s Pride’. This is a young shoot: the mature leaves are about 8″ long plus and big, floppy, ungainly things.


4. As Anna correctly guessed, this is Chimonanthus praecox – aka wintersweet.


5. And the last ivy: Hedera helix ‘Oro di Bogliasco’, an eye-catching if not eye-boggling combination of red stem, and yellow-and-green leaves. It’s got a neat habit but it’s a bit … erm… bright.

On to this week’s, and we got away from the twigs-on-desktops vibe and actually got outside for once. They aren’t quite so difficult this time, either, so I’m not giving you a clue apart from the last one which I hadn’t even heard of before, let alone grown. As a general clue: just remember all these plants are flowering now.

1. 2.

3.

4.

5. (clue: it’s evergreen, it has those little yellow flowers all winter, and it’s a neat little shrub about 2ft tall. )

Enjoy 😀

Identity parade

28 Wednesday Jan 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

ivies, plant identification

Each week at college we get a load of twigs, bits of leafy stuff, and occasionally a droopy flower or two, all in varying states of intactness, and we have to identify them. Rather than keeping all the pain to myself, I thought I’d share. So this is the first of a weekly series of guessing games – and just to make it really tricky, you only get a photo to look at, and not a very good one at that 😀

There’s usually a theme – last week, it was mostly twigs from trees, and this week it was mostly ivies (that’s a clue, by the way). I won’t inflict the whole 11 idents on you, but here’s a choice selection – can you recognise any of these? (I’ll give you a clue for the more difficult ones).

1.

(Clue: yes it is meant to be up that way.)

2. (Clue: it’s changed its name recently – and you’ll have to come up with the new one!)

3. (I’m not going to give you a clue for this one – far too easy!)

4. (Clue: this is a juvenile shoot)

5.
(Clue: it’s all in the stem colour)

There aren’t any prizes, beyond the right to be smug, though I might keep a running total and come up with a little something for the person who gets the most right between now and when this little series finishes, in about June. But for now, let the guessing begin – first person to guess correctly has the point, and if you haven’t got them all by next week, I’ll give you the answers in the comments section. Have fun!

Back to school

26 Friday Sep 2008

Posted by sallynex in garden design

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Capel Manor, college, garden design course, garden visits, plant design, plant identification

I started my new college course this week.

It’s the Plants and Plant Design course, run by Capel Manor College – and I’m told they’re the only ones in the country who do a course focussing solely on designing with plants (rather than general garden design, which in most colleges means a lot of stuff about paving slabs). It’s one half of their full diploma course – the other half being their “Principles and Practice” garden design course, which at the moment anyway I don’t think I shall take as I don’t really want to be a garden designer. That’s tantamount to heresy in some quarters, it seems, and I may yet see the error of my ways and change my mind, but right now I just want to learn about plants.

The first day was pretty much an orientation session – working out what we’re going to do and when, where the library is, all that kind of stuff. We were initiated into the arcane science of plant idents – something I do day-to-day in my normal job, but not something which I’ve had to do formally before. This week it’s Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’, a couple of Persicarias, a Sedum and a rather floppy-looking Achillea (‘Summerwine’ if my memory serves me right). Plant names aren’t usually a problem for me, but remembering all their various habits, sizes, tics and quirks is a bit more challenging – unfortunately the plants are chosen for you, or I’d use the opportunity to learn a whole load of plants I don’t already know!

The course syllabus includes a visit to Great Dixter, another to Beth Chatto’s, and a third to – get this – the Netherlands to visit some of the iconic gardens they have there (unfortunately not Piet Oudolf’s, but fortunately Het Loo which is somewhere I’ve wanted to go for a very, very long time). Now this is my kind of school lesson!

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