Voodoo Lilies 🍁🍂🌿

 

I slowly clomped my way up to the shed with my walking frame . My L3 spine injury is causing my leg to be kind of numb , tingling and wobbly . The strength in my legs has really deteriorated , but I am really working on it . Soon I may get some physiotherapy . 

I shouldn't go up this way really ,because It can be slippery ....I had clomped halfway up before I remembered . I must go through the meadow to the lovely new gate , much safer . 

There will eventually be a new fence along here with posts that I can lean on as I go up .

I wanted to check on the plants in the shed and in the greenhouse .

I don't really do Halloween ....🎃✨🧡

But up beside the shed door ...I was very surprised to see .....

                                 ✨🎃 🧡    Voodoo Lily shoots !   🧡🎃✨

                                                        Look at that ! 

            These are the corms my daughter gave me from her garden back in the Summer .

A couple of daffodils shoots in there too ...she has a lovely garden , stuffed with interesting things .

                                                Wow... that was a nice surprise .   

But no , I don't do Halloween . 

I walk past the aisles of all that plastic tat in the supermarket . Money would be better given to the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal .🌹

I don't do Guy Fawkes Night either  .... 😜...... 🤣....... 🎉

                                  

I need to get the winter insulation up in the greenhouse , but the pain relief meds are making me feel a bit woozy still ..... 

     ......... I am getting there slowly and I need a clear head to look after my also poorly husband .

                       Weather update - Yesterday " blinking cold !"

                                                   Today  " cold "    

          .....and the occasional icy cold squall with a bit of hail thrown in for good measure .

                           Sunshine and rainbows !  ⛅🌧️🌈

                                           Make it a great weekend ........  try !

                                                    Love and Peace 🤍  Debbie  🌿🪷  x

The Beauty and the Beast

                                                 Rosa "Bonica"

The Roses are putting on a fabulous show right now .

               This beauty  Rosa "Bonica" is one of my favourites .

                                     Amorphophallus konjac 

      But the Beast has not yet finished it's outrageous performance !

           I am not detecting any fragrance and not so many flies are being attracted .

                                       These are fascinating plants .

                                    Amorphophallus konjac .

                                    Sauromatum venosum

Sauromatum venosum is now withering .

The beautiful spotted spathe is curling up .       Leaving just the long thin spadix .

Next if pollinated it will form a seed head at the bottom which would be fantastic ! 

   I can grow more !   🤩

Anyway , then a single petiole (stalk) should push up with lovely leaf on top . 

I will plant this out after it dies back in the early Autumn  and all my voodoo lilies will get covered with a nice thick mulch to keep them cosy and warm through the Winter months . 

Hopefully it will make one or two off-shoots , little tubers and then we'll have a nice clump of these sweet little monsters !

I sent away for some Arisaema speciosum  , Cobra Lily seeds to try .  

Other news -

We harvested a couple of tubs of our First Early Red Duke of York potatoes . 

Husband really enjoyed himself hunting for the beautiful red spuds  !

  My little grand daughter will do the next lot for me , which was the main reason I grew them in tubs this year .

We will use these straight away. (already had some ) Red Duke of York , turns out to be a very nice variety of potato . Not one single slug hole ! Very pleased !  

The storm clouds have gone . Didn't hear any thunder , plenty of rain . Everything refreshed again in the garden and the water butt refilled . 

The hot sun has come out again . I can only do garden operations very early in the morning or evening during these hot Summer months . 

I must remember to cover up and wear my sun hat when we go out on our walks .

        

                                                                   🌤️☀️☀️

Oh My Goodness ! 🤗 Look at this ! Look at this ! 🤩

So , I didn't do very much yesterday , due to having my ultra sound scan on my Achilles tendon .

It took most of the day with the very long drive there and back . 

So I just did a bit of pottering about in the morning . We've had a little more rain and everything looks  refreshed . I hoed away weed seedlings that popped up over night  . 

I checked that all is well in the greenhouse . The cucumbers are growing away fast now .

Tomatoes .

Here are the Courgettes . I didn't think I'd have courgettes this year . Two packets of seeds just did not make it . This , the third try have been successful and since I repotted them just the other day , have really surged in growth !  I have put them outside on the table today to start hardening them off . 

Anyway , so I first injured my Achilles dancing .....Bhangra  . ( very joyful bouncy jumpy dancing ) resulting in a very painful partial rupture  .

It did improve over time .

But now I've been and gone and done it again ....this time digging in the garden .....  🙄

This time it is painful tendinopathy and when it flares up it feels like a blow torch . I have to wait and see what my doctor thinks to do about it .....probably physio  I should think . 

Enough of that !

Come and look at this ! 

Remember the voodoo lilies I showed you back in the Spring ?

Actually this was taken on the 25 January . Look at those gorgeous speckled shoots !

And now ...

 Okay ..lets go in for a closer look ....

            What ? !!!!   Oh ! My goodness !  Look at it ! Look at it !   

  

                                                Oh ! lol ! WoW ! 

                          It's not even fully out yet !! 🤣😂🤣

My daughter gave me this clump from her garden last year . I think this is  Amorphophallus konjak.

I have some in pots which are not so boldly coloured , maybe I should plant them out . I think I was over pampering them . 

When they are fully open they have a fragrance of rotting carrion   🪰🪰🦟🐜🪳🪰 .....

                  .................. it doesn't last very long okay ! 

 That's how it gets pollinated .

Anyway , I am blown away by these !

I bought another one ....this one is different .  Sauromatum venosum  from the Greek word -sauros which means lizard  🦖 as in dinosaur and venosum - which I suppose is describing the vein like markings on the flower /inflorescence and the stalk .  Native to Asia and Africa and the Arabian Penninsula, it is also known as Typhonium venosum , the Indian Giant , Monarch of the East and Voodoo lily  - although it is actually  not a true lily , but an Aroid . 

 This flower/inflorescence is going to be awesome ! 

This is still only it's second year , so I'm not expecting much from it  .🌿🌿🌿

However , I am watching it very closely with interest 🤔 and will give you an update later on .

 

                                               Sunday 1st June 🌿

                                                   Tuesday 3rd June

                                                              Yesterday 

I don't know if this is going to push up a flower first or if it will be just a leaf . 

 We'll have to wait and see ! 

            ....and of course I will give you an update on this one as it begins to open  ! 

                                                                   🌦️☀️🌦️

Wow ! 🌿

 

                            🌿    Amorphophallus konjac gorgeousness  ! 🌿

                                       🌿 Voodoo Lilies  💚🌿  

Taking a rest from pruning bushes .

 I had to have a rest from all that lopping and chopping bushes and trees, and from trying to pull up weed membrane and old carpet . My whole body is aching from it , one elbow in particular .

Do a couple of things , a bit more gentle . I needed to repot this Haworthia . I lost the label years ago , but it this a lovely white variety that my husband was gifted  by a very kind gentleman work associate to take home and give to me .With the appropriate CITES permissions he was allowed to bring it all the way from Cape Town in South Africa  . This was such a wonderful surprise and thoughtful gift for me . I never expected anything .No one ever thought of me back at home with the children while he was away .

  Usually my husband would be gifted bottles of wine ....nice for him , but , I've never acquired the taste for alcohol . 

The other lovely gift I was surprised with was an L.P. of Chopin's Nocturnes Piano music to dance to -  I was so surprised and delighted ! 

 Anyhoo .... so I got the Haworthia  sort of half potted up . I need to get some nice horticultural grit or something nice to mulch around it . It was trying to climb out of it's original 3"pot ! It has room to spread out now .

If you know what this one is called , like it's proper Latin name , please let me know so that I can give it a new label .  I'll sort that out tomorrow and I might have an even better idea for it .

So the next job was to re-paint our old fire back . This we bought from a reclamation yard many years ago , somewhere in Kent .

It is probably the heaviest thing we own . We had help lifting it into the car .

It was a miracle that it didn't fall through the floor of the boot and I have no idea how we got it out when we got home .

It has been in the inglenook of two thatched 16th century cottages and now stands outside as our fireplace here is not big enough for it to be put into . Well actually it is big enough , but it would be hard to manoeuvre it behind the woodburning stove  . 

 I found a couple of paint brushes and an old pot of metal paint .

Goodness knows how long we've had it . It was hard on top , but I managed to make a hole through it .

        This was a nice easy job , I didn't have to be too precious with it .  I could just slap it on .

                  Poor old Mr Fairfax .....oh sorry ..... General Lord Fairfax .

   My husband says I wouldn't have liked you . He also says that you wouldn't have liked me !

             I'll like him better with some pretty flowers around him .

It's a bit too early for putting out hanging baskets with Pelargoniums  just yet , but I will be thinking about it .

But then again , this window-box has survived the Winter . I had just forgotten all about it . I guess it is on a more sheltered South facing windowsill .

There are trailing Pelargoniums , Erigeron little white daisies , an Agave , and a Petunia !

They are saying we will be having cold winds blowing from the North in a few days time  . 

I'll see if I can find a piece of fleece to go over it , but then it has survived that strange icy haily snowy few days of weather we had towards the end of last month (17th January I think ) .

One last bit of thrilling news . The Voodoo Lilies are coming up !  Well they thrill me anyway .
 

                            So that just leaves this job to finish tomorrow .

Please forgive any spelling mistakes as I am too tired tonight to check it all over !  🌿