A mixed bag

Every blog needs a "miscellaneous" post once in a while. This is one of those. I have some photos I want to publish, but they don't fit any particular theme, so here goes...

Last Saturday I spotted a Damselfly sunning itself on our rotary clothes-line. I rushed indoors to fetch my camera, fully expecting the insect to have departed by the time I got back, but No, it obligingly waited while I took some photos. What a strange but beautiful creature it is!

I am advised that the way to tell a Damselfly from a Dragonfly is that the former rests with its wings folded, but the latter rests with them outstretched. Simples!

Here's another curiosity seen in my garden - a Radish whose foliage is variegated:

It was just the one plant that was like that, a one-off genetic mutation. Perhaps I should have allowed it to grow on so that I could save its seeds? Come to think of it, Radishes with variegated leaves would certainly look nice in a potager. Imagine them next to the deep red of beetroot leaves.

I have been trying to get a good photo of my Lily of the Valley, but it has proved harder than I expected. The plant is growing in an area of shade, around my micro-pond:

Because of the strange light conditions I had to use the flash, which always disappoints! This is the best I could do.



My pot of Oxalis "Burgundy Wine" is growing strongly now. It dies down completely every Winter, but in the Spring it pops back up with its beautiful deep purple (wine-coloured?) leaves:

Later on it will produce some delicate white flowers.

The Hydrangea that my friend Rosemary gave me for my birthday has grown a lot and now has some buds on it. To be honest this is a bonus, because I hadn't expected it to flower until it was a lot bigger.

Here is another "significant" flower. A Clematis flower.

This is significant for me because it is the first flower ever produced by a plant which has been in my garden for nearly four years! We got it as one of those freebies from a magazine. The year I planted it, it was ravaged by foxes / cats and got severely damaged. However it has survived and now it has produced some flowers - the one pictured above has two siblings ("Wow!", I hear you cry). Maybe next year it will put on a more impressive show. I don't know much about growing Clematis (the plants fall into distinct groups, as fruit trees do, don't they?). It would help if I did some research I suppose... 

Finally for today, I want to make a mention of an interesting new blog I have discovered. It is called Ortolano a 30 anni (A gardener for 30 years), run by Enrico Ferrario, who lives in Northern Italy, about 30 kilometres from Milan. He writes in Italian, but his blog includes the "Google Translate" widget in its sidebar, so (allowing for some rather quaint translations) you can still enjoy it even if you can't understand the Italian language. Enrico has endeared himself to me already, because he has published lots of photos of chillis! His blog is worth a look...