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Post by tod2 on Dec 1, 2016 16:28:49 GMT
Bixa - I THINK the tall plant is called a 'Pineapple tree'.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 2, 2016 1:31:29 GMT
Beautiful photos of beautiful plants. Spectacular photos, really. Bixa, this particular report was too short! Please tell me there are more English garden photos to come. I am deeply flattered and honored, Breeze -- thank you! I have now covered all the gardens (seven) I visited on the tour. However, I still have a stash of Holland Park pictures plus tons more from everywhere I walked in London. Dare I ask if you have pictures from the marathon garden tour you took with your mother? If that took place pre-digital, I realize that's asking a lot. Still, I'd so much love to see anything you have.I think the tall leaner might be echium vulgare. We can't grow it here but I asked about it at a garden in France and the owner wrote down the name for me. Also the photo marked Halesia I think is more likely a Styrax. Oh, that's great! I looked up E.vulgare and it looks as though you nailed it. I went back & changed the caption on the Styrax to Styrax -- thanks so much.I have several memories of Nymans. The roses in the walled garden weren't in bloom yet, but I saw a fox dash through the area. A fox sighting is always a thrill for me, but I see from your photos, bixa, just what I missed by being too early. At Nymans I overheard a woman saying "When we were lost here..." and then realized she said "last." We saw a baby in a stroller with his sunhat pushed up in front. His dad pointed at him and laughed and said "Gobby Eyes!" Later I figured out he was saying Gabby Hayes. Thanks to cheap starter plants from Forestfarm, we have a Magnolia Leonard Messel that survives in our colder climate and flowers nicely but many years the flowers get killed by frost. I've coveted some plants with 'nymansay' in the name but they are too tender for us. I have loved all your garden photos, bixa, and hope you can go back to England. Breeze, I think I had the greatest luck. Apparently there had been too much rain earlier, but the three days of the tour were all sunny skies and happy plants. Still, much as I'd like to see the great garden in Spring, I'd be tempted to try for the same time of year again. I think in my whole life I've only seen one fox in the wild and that was just a glimpse. That must have been an enormous thrill.
Oh gawd ~ I totally identify with what you "heard". My very cool M.O. when repeatedly asking for directions in the subway for instance, was to squint furiously at the person's lips as he repeated whatever the hell he said for the third or fourth time. Then, with luck, I'd yell right in his face like a game show contestant delighted to know the answer, "Earl's Court! You said Earl's Court!"
Re: too tender, what we can & can't have, etc. ~ it's just as well I don't have access to all the plant catalogs there are in the States, as I'd wind up with too much stuff and it would all die from neglect. A good climate can make a person greedy and unrealistic, she said knowingly.
I can't tell you how much your kind words and appreciation have cheered me on -- thank you so very much. And yes, I must get back to England, the sooner the better. If you ever plan a trip there, please let me know as it would be great to coordinate a meet-up.
I don't want to make you feel pressured, but you do live in a state with some spectacular gardens -- Longwood, Bartram's, and Hershey, just to name a few. You see where I'm going here, right?
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 2, 2016 1:36:17 GMT
tod2, Breeze suggested that the towering plant might be Echium vulgare. Further searching has convinced me that it is Echium pininana -- like E. vulgare, but very, very big ~ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echium_pininana
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 6:36:41 GMT
I was happy to just scroll through all of these delightful photos again. They are a consolation when it is freezing outside.
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Post by lugg on Dec 9, 2016 19:46:26 GMT
Just catching up again -- such a stunning set of photos all but the Iris sequence in paticula are spectacular ... your photos are inspirational Bixa . I was reading my parish mag today and a regular poster highlighted that in UK this year dahlia's have been so magnificent and have lasted well into the Autumn ( I agree ) but then he also wrote that the dahlia is a Mexican flower / emblem and that it was grown centuries ago by Aztecs . Ok I can and do accept that but then he also wrote that the tuber are edible - some varieties more so. Checking this out in the gospel according to Wiki - it appears to be correct.
But ... over to you Bixa. I cannot remember seeing many dahlia in your posts of plants in Oaxaca or have I failed completely and missed / forgotten them ?
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 9, 2016 23:03:39 GMT
Belated thanks, Kerouac. I see you've got two Christmasy threads going from chilly Paris and Strasbourg, so maybe you don't need summery consolation right now. Ahh, lugg ~ lovely, lovely compliment -- thank you so much! Now, about the dahlias. As soon as I read that I marched my dubious little self right over to the market and asked the vendors (all but one of whom were ladies who cook) about that. They'd never heard of such a thing. Then I came home and copied and pasted into google the quote you included. Aha! There are three pages (before I stopped looking) of hits featuring that quote word for word -- proof that it has escaped into the blog universe and become one more spurious internet "fact". However, the tubers were in fact once considered as food & of course it's possible that somewhere in this mountainous state they are still eaten. The most interest in edible dahlias seems to be in the UK: www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11405748/Edible-dahlias-a-return-to-Aztec-roots.html (here is the Lubera mentioned in the article: www.lubera.co.uk/. I also came across a very interesting commercial US site with extensive information on edible dahlias: www.cultivariable.com/instructions/how-to-grow-edible-dahlias/And no, you haven't missed seeing dahlias in my posts on Oaxaca. They are sold in nurseries, but aren't that common. It may be because the valley where the city is gets so hot during the dry season. I think dahlias like much more humidity and probably the ones available are grown up in the mountains.
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Post by breeze on Dec 11, 2016 21:38:06 GMT
Bixa, my photos from our English garden trip have about the crispness of poor watercolors. Nothing worth looking at. I'll probably dip into your threads more often than I'd dig out my own old photos.
You are right, I should get out and take garden photos in our fair state next spring. I can't think of anything on the level of what you saw in England, though, even Longwood.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 13, 2016 5:02:05 GMT
Aww, you are kind, Breeze.
I would love to see your area in the Spring. Remember, some of us live where Spring doesn't involve crocuses or wisteria or waves of lovely scilla, so it would be a special treat for us. Anyway, I just know you take killer garden pictures.
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Post by lugg on Dec 23, 2016 8:02:02 GMT
I kind of suspected the info was dud. Thanks for the info Bixa.
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