Granny's Bonnets

Our garden is taken over every May by delightful invaders ... granny's bonnets, also known as aquilegias or columbines. They self-seed everywhere, given the chance, and have spread into all corners of the garden. I don't mind, and am always very happy to see them as they are a very pretty perennial and come in a gorgeous selection of colours.

They are violet

white with pink edges

rose pink

blue

dark purple

palest pink

deep pink

and purple with green-tipped petals.

The name aquilegia comes from the Latin word 'aquila' which means 'eagle' and this is because their flowers were thought to look like an eagle's claw. I like the name granny's bonnets because they do look like pretty little hats nodding on their long slender stems. However, another name, columbine, comes from the Latin 'columba' which means 'dove'. This is because the flower is said to resemble a group of five doves. If you look closely at one segment of the flower you can see the little dove. The spur above the petal looks like a curved neck and head. Look ...

Here are some granny's bonnets which I saw when visiting another garden. These are pale green veined with lilac and are quite frilly.

These are a perfect double rosette shape.

And these are pure white with very long spurs.

When the flowers are over the seed-heads are beautiful too. They look like graceful fluted goblets, and pop open when the seeds are ripe.

Nurseries sell striking bi-coloured versions which are gorgeous too, but I like my 'common' ones the best. When they cross-pollinate you never know what colour you'll get...

...or where they'll pop up next. These soft pink ones thoughtfully positioned themselves in front of a deep green fern.

Our garden would be so much the worse without our lovely granny's bonnets. I allow them all to stay, rarely thinning them out, and always look forward to their flowering. I couldn't imagine May without them!

Wild Garlic

When we went to the bluebell woods a couple of weeks ago, we stopped off along the way to pick wild garlic first. We've been doing this for a few years now, and it's become one of the seasonal markers in our year.

From mid-April into May the unmistakeably pungent aroma greets the nostrils of anyone who passes through the woods or along roadsides where it grows. We followed the path and went over the stile, and we were there, surrounded by garlic.

Like bluebells, it grows in deciduous woodland and carpets the ground with little white flowers when in bloom. Its other names are ransoms, bear's garlic, jack-by-the-hedge and stinking jenny, and it is a member of the allium family which includes onions, leeks, garlic and chives. 

Unlike garlic, it's the leaves which are eaten, and not the bulbs, but care must be taken when picking not to take too many leaves from one plant. You must also ensure that you have identified the correct plant (your nose will tell you!) For anyone interested in foraging, this book is invaluable, and gives rules on picking.

The flowers are pretty little globes of white stars, although apparently you should aim to pick before too many of the flowers have opened, as the taste is better. I smelt the flowers, and they have a curious perfume of honey mixed with garlic which was not unpleasant!

There were lots of other signs of spring that day - buds were opening on the trees.

Tiny yellow celandines were dotted here and there on the ground.

Red campion was also in bloom, such a pretty wild flower. It always seems to link spring into summer for me, coming as it does, as the bluebells are past their prime.

Its hairy stems are particularly attractive, and so soft to the touch. I can remember picking them as a child and putting them in jam jars with butter cups and cow-parsley.

 The buttercups were there too, a gorgeous saucer of egg-yolk yellow.

Bright and sunny, with reflective waxy petals to catch the light.

So much to see in one quick trip to the woods! All around us the carpet of green and white stretched under the trees and we worked quickly, collecting a couple of bags of leaves to take home.

Once home, I washed and roughly chopped the leaves, and then whizzed them up in a little processor to chop them very finely. I then whizzed up some pine nuts, grated some parmesan and mixed it all together with lots of olive oil to make pesto.

  

The smell is absolutely heavenly, and so appetising, I can almost smell it when I look at this picture! I put some into jars, and the rest I froze in little tubs and ice-cube trays, so that we can enjoy it into the rest of the year.

I've got a small patch in the garden which my son planted for me a year ago, and will use a few leaves to make some cheese and garlic scones, as well as putting it in a salad. It goes especially well with tomatoes and mozzarella, and can be used in the same way as spinach in many recipes, wilting down very quickly when added at the end of cooking. We like to eat it with pasta and courgettes, and when we do it reminds us of our trip to the woods.

Bluebell Woods

This weekend was a long bank holiday weekend, and we felt in need of a visit to the woods. In particular, bluebell woods. They are usually at their best a little later in the month, but we had already glimpsed many in grass verges and in gaps in trees from the car when we've been out and about. I knew there was no time to spare, if we were to catch them at their peak, and so off we went to some woods a couple of miles away from where we live. The woods are in the grounds of a big old estate, and a road bisects them. We parked the car and after a few minutes came to a large patch of them.

That blue haze is unmistakeable, and Sara Maitland refers to their 'strange smoky shimmer' in her book Gossip from the Forest (a brilliant read if you're a fan of woodlands, forests or fairytales).

They are such a quintessential spring flower. The UK has around 50% of the world's bluebells, as we have just the right damp climate and plenty of ancient deciduous woodland. In Scotland the little campanulas that English people call harebells are called bluebells.

English native bluebells, or hyacinthoides non-scripta, have that unmistakeable droop to them and are an intensely violet shade of blue. They are sadly in decline because they hybridise with the Spanish bluebells which most of us have in our gardens. You can read about it here.

I got down to their level to smell them, and oh, the perfume! It's so delicate, and always puts me in mind of the scene in my favourite novel 'I Capture the Castle' in which Cassandra and her sister Rose visit a department store in London and find a bluebell scent for sale. They are poor and yearn for it, but later on when Cassandra is given it as a present she realises that it can't compare with the smell of the real flowers. I wonder if that's why the scent of bluebells isn't more widespread in modern perfumes.

Bluebells frequently grow under beech trees, and these woods were no exception. Beech leaves are so fresh and green this time of year and I love to see the sunlight through them

The trees around us were very tall and straight and the atmosphere so still, calm and quiet.

On the woodland floor there were many tree stumps attractively covered in moss and ivy.

There were several wild flowers in bloom too. The strangest one is arum. It has many other names such as cuckoo-pint, lords-and-ladies, jack-in-the-pulpit, wake robin, friar's cowl and devils-and-angels to name a few. Some of its names are rather rude, and a good deal of folklore is attached to it.

I also saw herb robert, which is a member of the geranium family, and has a smell like coriander.

There were also some lovely wild violets, growing amongst the ferns.

I'm glad we got out to see the bluebells at their best. They really are so uplifting. Hope you get to see some too this May x