Wild flowers

The red European poppies were flowering in the fields on road verges for most of last month, but I’ve posted about poppies every April and May, here and here; this year there is something else red flowering in the fields all around the house.  Do you remember that a few years ago almost every show garden at Chelsea had red clover (Trifolium incarnatum)? The farmers here must have been inspired (I jest – this has always been a planted to improve the soil and I think make good hay for the sheep and cows (not absolutely sure about that).

Trifolium incarnatum with Vetch

Trifolium incarnatum

ploughed soil and a line of clover

St. Bernard’s Lily Anthericum liliago

This delicate looking plant was growing wild in my friends garden; if it were in mine I’d move some to a border where they could be enjoyed.

Above and below:

While visiting a friend’s garden I saw a plant I’ve heard of but never seen before, Cerinthe major is well known in its purple form but the wild yellow form is never planted in gardens as far as I know.

Cerinthe

With all the rain this year so far, I’m thinking of renaming 2013 as the year of the snail!  I have many more than normal in my garden this year, but nothing like the number my friend has in hers; these are all gathered on one poor rose bud.

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You Can Tell It’s Autumn When…..

When it rains everyone begins to start counting the days until there should be Funghi (wild mushrooms to pick.  Unless the wind swings round to the north or it suddenly gets very hot ten days after a good downpour the woods and hills are filled with people with baskets. They are up at the crack of dawn; there is a lot of competition!

Foraging for food is still a very common practice in this part of Italy – very soon it will be chestnuts when it is dangerous driving on the roads for the number of food hunters bent over collecting the chestnuts that have fallen from the trees onto the public road and therefore available for harvesting by anyone who is brave enough to share the road with the speeding cars.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner by friends who had just returned from a successful morning’s collecting.

We had raw porcini (ceps or penny bun or its Latin name is Boletus edulis) and raw ovoli (Amanita caesarea – Cesear’s  mushroom to as an antipasto.  Sorry, no image of this; it was eaten too quickly!

Followed by a fried Parasol Macrolepiota procera.

Parasol, Macrolepiota procera

The main dish was roasted potatoes with the caps of the enormous porcini cooked on top so that all the delicious flavours dripped down onto the absorbent potatoes.  The caps were studded with a shards of garlic and seasoned with salt and pepper and the magic ingredient a sprinkle of dried fennel flowers.

The cleaned mushrooms waiting to be cooked

Mostly porcini but you can see a couple of orange capped ovoli

The classic shape of Boletus edulis, Porcino

To have a sense of scale, Lidia is holding up two of the prize specimens

A wonderful meal was rounded off with roasted chestnuts!

Thank you Lidia and Giuliano

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Wild flowers in Puglia

Last weekend we drove south to spend the weekend in Puglia, on the Gargano peninsula to be exact.  The sea was amazingly blue and it was so hot, the water was where I wanted to be.  On the map the Gargano is the spur on the boot of the Italian peninsula.  It is mostly a National Park and I’ve been told that in spring there are more varieties of orchids found here than anywhere else in Italy, some that are only found here.

While driving to visit some of the different towns we often stopped the car to enjoy the stunning views.  By the roadside were wild flowers that could obviously cope with the difficult conditions.

Right by the road I spotted this root;

Knurled and twisted root

what could it be?  The root of a tree? Cistus?

Following the roots to some green leaves…

the plant was much smaller than I had imagined it would be.

with the foliage and also a few flowers it was easy to identify as a Thyme, certainly the most tenacious thyme I have encountered.

At another stop I saw these beautiful flowers.

They also grow on cliffs, seemingly not to need and soil at all to survive.

From the buds that you can see, can you guess what plant it is?

Here’s a further clue.  We eat them in bud and in the fruit stage……

Here are all the stages; bud, flower and fruit

Did you guess? Yes, that’s correct.  This is the caper plant (Capparis spinosa).

The buds are picked and then either conserved in brine or under salt with no liquid which is the way I prefer to buy them as they have a more intense flavour, great on Pizza or in Spaghetti alla Putanesca.  The fruits (also conserved in brine) are often served along with olives for aperitivi.

I’ve tried to grow it in the garden but for a plant that seems to need so little to grow, it is very choosy and it is very difficult to encourage it to grow in a garden setting.

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Wild Flower Wednesday

On Sunday we drove to Orvieto to watch the Corpus Domini Procession, during the drive we were open mouthed at the number of poppies, some fields were completely red.  We stopped by a lane that was sprinkled with various flowers, some I’ve never seen before, but all were lovely.

The bright red contrasts so well with the vibrant green.

Beautiful close up

….and in the distance

This delicate viola stole my heart

These I’ve not seen before but they look garden worthy!

…..and this is what we went to see!

Men in tights!

wearing beautiful shoes.

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Wordless Wednesday – the countryside nearby

I passed this field this morning nearby our house and wanted to share it with you

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May Feast – growing wild

Those of you who visited the Chelsea about 8 years ago will remember that almost every garden had a planting of red clover; here in the countryside around Viterbo the farmers use red clover as a means of adding goodness to the soil; it is also very pretty!

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Poppies and more poppies

I love the spring for the beautiful wild flowers in the countryside.

I am so pleased that the farmers don’t spray the fields to eliminate and kill all the native plants.

I’m glad people who have olive trees don’t want to use any herbicides that might spoil the quality and health giving benefits of their precious oil

Just so beautiful

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Alliums, Irises and Roses

More Alliums and Roses are flowering now as are Irises.

All the Irises have flowered in the last week.  They are a new love of mine.  In the past I thought they were rather difficult to mix with other plants and that, as they flower for such a short time, they weren’t worth the space.  When I first began this garden a kind friend gave me some Irises; actually he gave them to me before I was ready and they sat for a while waiting to be planted.  How glad I am that they survived my mistreatment!  They are now very happily established and I’m sure the pale blue, brown (Maid of Kent, I think), have both more than doubled their clump size since last year.

I like this Iris with Rosa glauca and the foliage of Artemisia pontica

Strong but pale blue Irises under Mulberry

Two years ago he sold me some other rhizomes, one an amazing pink (that description doesn’t do it justice) and a true black, these have also doubled their clump size; a rather good purple is rather slower but I’m sure it will grow this year now it has flowered.  So now I’m looking at on-line brochures to check other colours that might give the right effect in other parts of the garden.  I’m thinking burnt orange for the back border which would benefit from some colour at this time of year, after the tulips and before the Hemerocallis and Abutilon.

Brown Iris - last year at Chelsea almost every garden had this one!

The brown Irises combine very well with the new growth tints of Nandino, and with bronze fennel, I’ll move the Irises closer to the Nandino when they’ve finished flowering (I said I’d do it last year but somehow ran out of time and I’m regretting it now.

Yes, they really are black, stunning!

Does anyone know the name of this one, a real beauty

These Dutch Iris Bronze Queen look better in the photo than in life where they look a bit sickly to me.

The above are now almost horizonal due to the terrible winds of the last two days.

Blue Dutch Iris are also planted near Hemerocallis Sol d’Oro but they’re not fully out yet so I post their image another time.

This year Allium karataviense looks even better than last year when it was its first year.  I have always loved the crimson edged, almost blue-green foliage; it has the advantage over other alliums that the foliage remains looking good while it flowers.  It even seems to be clumping up so I’m hopeful that it will keep growing for some years.  Not so A. aflatunense which has not re-flowered well in the formal beds leading me to think I might plant something else instead.

New for me is Allium Roseum planted in the middle of a group of 3 Rose Scepter’d Isle.  Small and dainty it resembles the wild alliums I’ve seen growing in various places, although this is more pink as the name would suggest.

A. Roseum

Allium Christophii

Allium Claret is about to open, already I like its colour

Then, of course, there are the roses.  All of them have at least some flowers with most now in full bloom!

Above is Rosa Westerland, which seems to me the colour of the sunsets we have here.

R. Queen of Sweden

R. Tradescant has more flowers on one bush at this moment than the one I had in England had in 3 years!

West facing pillars have R. Clair Matin

R. Rush

R. Sophie's perpetual

R. William Shakespeare

R. Scepter'd Isle

R. Gertrude Jekyll

…..and for something completely different, here’s what mother Nature can do when left to her own devices!

I pass this wonderful field of poppies every time I go out.

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Christina.
All rights reserved.
Content created by Christina for
My Hesperides Garden.

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A country walk in November

You can see the T - the false door to the under world of Etruscan culture

We are lucky to live near an Etruscan archeological site and it is often our destination when we want an interesting walk.  There are often wild flowers and I enjoy the sense of walking in a place inhabited for the last two and a half thousand years.
Feeling cheated of the sunshine of earlier in the week we set out from home in strong drizzle; but as we continued the weather improved.

I saw several flowers determined to flower despite the arrival of autumn.

Verbascum with just a few sunny flowers

Verbascum, standing like soldiers to attention!

Chicory is sort for its edible foliage, a slightly bitter vegetable

And how do you get rid of red-eye – actually yellow eye from cats!

I’ve never seen real cats looking so much like china ones, sitting on the step waiting to be allowed into the farmhouse kitchen.

By the end of our walk the rain had stopped and the sun, low in the sky was lighting the foliage and landscape with amazing colour.

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