I'm putting together my first technical post, but the diagrams and bits are taking a while, so as the weather is so glorious, I thought I would share some garden delights instead. I worked as a gardener for 3 years before I switched careers to knitting, and I feel as though I have forgotten most of what I once knew. So here is the first of three delightful plants from my garden. The other two plants will follow over the weekend.
This is a Foxtail Lily (Eremurus himalaicus), which bursts forth every spring like some sort of Triffid. You feel as if you can watch it growing in the early stages of its emergence. We bought the tuberous roots from Avon Bulbs some years back, and they have been unstoppable ever since.
There are still lots of flowers to come yet... And the buds are just as attractive as the flowers themselves.
But the most delightful thing about these lilies is their height! This flower spike stands taller than Jim already (6ft), and it hasn't finished growing yet. They are truly stunning. If you want to plant some of your own, you need a site that gets lots of sun in the summer and isn't over-crowded, as the tubers need to bake, in order to get good flowers the following spring. And they need planting in autumn for flowering the following year.
I hope the weather holds over the weekend so that we can do some more vegetable seed sowing.