It has been almost a month since I last wrote but it feels as though we are still in the same long, drawn out winter. New flowers are appearing in the garden daily, but the scent is coming primarily from the chives and the wild garlic and we are still a long way from achieving the colourful palette we enjoyed last year.
Sadly, the lilac seem to have come and gone with a whimper, rather than the big flourish we enjoyed last Spring. I missed their lovely scent this year:
In contrast, my few clusters of aquilegia are faring well and are currently putting on a lovely show in a range of pinks and whites. They have never been one of my favourite cottage garden plants; they don't have the stature of the foxglove, the cheerful exuberance of cosmos or the the scent of a lavender or rose, but on closer inspection their little mop-headed flowers really are quite lovely:
The name "aquilegia" comes from the Latin word for "eagle" as the shape of the flowers was thought by many to resemble an eagle's claws. Others thought the shape of the petals more closely resembled a flock of doves and thus coined the term "Columbine", from the Latin "columba" meaning "dove". Personally, I think the old country name of Granny's bonnet is the most fitting as I can easily imagine the clusters of flowers as gatherings of gossiping old ladies under colourful, wide-brimmed bonnets.
Like many traditional cottage garden plants, aquilegias are loved by a variety of insects and have a long history of cultivation. They feature well in literature and art, most notably as part of the bouquet carried by the tortured Ophelia in Hamlet:
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance:
pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies,
that's for thoughts.
There's fennel for you, and columbines:
there's rue for you; and here's some for me:
we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays: O
you must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy: I would give you some violets,
but they withered all when my father died".
Growing up in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside, Shakespeare was well-versed in the symbolism of flowers and is believed to have chosen the aquilegia (columbine) to represent flattery or insincerity. In the 'Language of Flowers' by Louise Cortambert, columbines are associated with folly, possibly as the flower heads look like the caps worn by court jesters.
Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais
Whilst the flowers in the garden are not as plentiful as last year, the weeds have loved the recent wet weather and are fast taking over. In an effort to make more use of all of the plants in our garden (and having recently discovered it is edible), I made my first batch of cleavers tea today (i.e. cleavers is more commonly known as "sticky willy"). I thought it tasted ok, sweetened with a little honey, but Andy was not at all impressed ("it tastes like grass").
I fared a little better with a batch of dandelion honey I had made using dandelions I had harvested from the garden in which I work (ensuring that they had not been sprayed with any chemicals and were well away from any footpaths frequented by dog walkers). If you want to give this a try, I followed one of the many recipes available online, scaling quantities down to fit the amount of dandelions I had harvested: The best vegan dandelion honey - that actually tastes like honey • PlantePusherne - vegansk mad
The dandelion is one of several plants which are carpeting the countryside around our home at the moment. The bluebells may be fading, but the fields are full of sunny yellow buttercups, cowslips and oil seed rape, whilst the surrounding hedgerows are lined with swatches of frilly Cow Parsley, forming the lacy edging to a bright yellow handkerchief.
For a small change of scenery, we took a trip to nearby Bagley Wood at the weekend. Owned by St John's College, Oxford, this is an ancient woodland, meaning that it has existed continuously as woodland since at least 1600. In fact (apart from a few years in the sixteenth century), Bagley Wood has had only two owners since 955 and the area has been predominantly owned by St John's College since 1557.
The strange thing is that you can feel the age of the place as you walk through it. It may seem overly romantic, but some woods do seem to have a presence about them, as if you can feel generations of ancestors walking with you, as they live, hunt and forage amongst the trees.
As if to set the mood perfectly, we were stopped in our tracks by a lovely deer which walked onto the path ahead of us as as we wandered around. It was timid, though obviously used to the presence of people, as it did not seem overly bothered as long as we kept our distance. We followed it for a short while until it disappeared silently into the undergrowth again, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
The dandelion does not stop growing because it is told it is a weed. The dandelion does not care what others see. It says, "One day, they'll be making wishes upon me". B Atkinson
One day I sat in the woods, which I found to be stunningly different than walking 'through' the woods. And in the sitting, the woods jumped to life with a spirited activity that I had scarcely ever seen or known to exist. And as I sat there turning this way and that in order to draw it all in, I thought that it was not the woods coming alive. Rather, it was me coming to a halt". Craig D. Lounsbrough
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