Foggie-toddlers - revised repeat!

Having had some small success introducing the word 'fwing' as a term for describing plant growth, and in widening use of the name 'cow mumble' for cow parsley, I thought I'd try again with one more word I'd love to get into more general use.

I posted this last year, and SomeBeans and I now always use the term to refer to the little creatures. So, in attempt to get the term more widely used (and through blatant copying and pasting of a previous post of mine), I introduce to you the foggie-toddler.

"What a great name. Apparently, this is a Scottish name for bumblebees. According to SomeBeans, all bumblebees have the same first name, which is Delius. Why bees would have first names, and if so, why it would be Delius, he is a little hazy about.

Actually, it was only today that he realised that there were different species of bumblebee - until I suggested this, he thought that the different colourations were due to genetic variations similar to those causing different hair colour in humans. He is now in a bit of an existential quandary as to whether different species of bumblebees have different first names. Furthermore, we have been having an ongoing 'discussion' for many years as to whether bumblebees live in nests in burrows or in thick vegetation (my suggestion) or in chalets. Presumably something like this .

The National History Museum has an interactive British bumblebee key which I've been having fun playing with today. Of course, you need to make sure you're not trying to identify a mimic such as the bumblebee hoverfly instead. Hoverflies can generally be distinguished from the insects they mimic by the false wing edge vein (one of the few things I remember from my zoology degree).

Apparently, bumblebees are not doing too well in the UK at the moment, with three species already extinct according to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. There's a lot we can do to help, by practicing bumblebee friendly gardening. It seems that they like a more 'relaxed'" style of gardening (very much in the ethos of the Inelegant Gardener). The favorite plants of the foggie-toddlers in our garden are the cardoons, which seethe with the insects in summer, but they seem to like pretty much any flower, including dahlias, snapdragons, sedum, and echinacea.

All of the bumblebees in the UK belong to the genus Bombus, (meaning 'booming') although cuckoo bumblebees used to be classified in a separate genus, Psithyrus (meaning 'murmuring'). They have an interesting lifecycle, with workers on average only living for four weeks. Their behaviour is quite complex, with communication by pheremones, which are used to pass on information, including marking which flowers have been visited, so that other bumbles can avoid them.

So, say "Hello, Delius" to the next foggie-toddler you see, and do what you can to help them.

This has been a public information announcement on behalf of the Foggie-toddlers Admiration Society."

Daisy

Daisy Time
by Marjorie Pickthall

See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness;
Hearts they have of shining gold,
Rays of shining whiteness.
Buttercups have honeyed hearts,
Bees they love the clover,
But I love the daisies' dance
All the meadow over.
Blow, O blow, you happy winds,
Singing summer's praises,
Up the field and down the field
A-dancing with the daisies.

Fwing!

Last year, I introduced the word 'fwing' to describe the foliage explosion of certain plants at this time of year. One of the best group of plants for floral fwinging are alliums.

Allium atropurpureum

Allium christophii with their starry spheres.

Unlike Arabella Sock, my Allium schubertii have survived the ravages of cats. Their explosions come in two tiers:

Nectaroscordum siculum has been written about here. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers allusion is spot on. Once the bud breaks, however, the individual flowers snake out of their skin like the lively locks of Medusa.

CSI Chester - updated

Hmmm. I've just cycled down to the allotment for a sunny afternoon of hoeing and weeding. And I've just returned - the site has been cordoned off with Crime Scene tape, and a nice police lady told me I couldn't go on there, and they weren't sure how long the tape would remain in place.

We were on the plot at around nine this morning, dropping off sweetcorn and French bean plants which I'd grown in the greenhouse. I was planning on planting them out this afternoon. The site next to ours had been taped off at this point, but not ours. SomeBeans took some photos, as we hadn't taken any for a while. I can only surmise that it's something rather more serious than the normal round of pilfering that goes on at our (and most other) allotment sites.

The chickens next door were unconcerned by the hoo-ha and only wanted to be fed worms.

Hopefully we'll be back on the plot before the birds get to these.

UPDATE: All was open this morning, although no-one knows what it was all about - all the police would say was that it was "an incident". I've planted the sweetcorn and beans, and SomeBeans discovered the joy of hoeing.

I'm in love!

The irises I planted last year have flowered for the first time. Meet Iris germanica 'Dutch Chocolate'. For some bizarre reason, growing an iris like this has made me feel very 'grown up'. I've been watching her slowly come into bud over the past few days. One petal was languidly draped out this morning at 06:30, and twelve hours later she has revealed her divine sumptuousness.

Isn't she gorgeous? Her name is delicious and so is she.

Limestone pavements

We had a walk in North Wales at the weekend in the glorious bank holiday weather. I chose this particular walk as it went past Bryn Alyn's limestone pavement. Limestone pavement is relatively uncommon in North Wales, and whilst this area isn't as extensive as some other areas such as the Burren in Ireland and Malham Cove in Yorkshire, it was still exciting to see.

The habitat is very distinctive, with pavement blocks (known as 'clints') being dissected by 'grikes' - the vertical fissures. It was fascinating to see. The limestone pavement has its own flora. Lots of early purple orchids were dotted around the turf surrounding the pavement area. Ordinarily, this post would be accompanied by a plethora of photos. Unfortunately, we had a bit of an equipment failure (the battery ran out!). Here's a picture of the view, though.

The rock garden at RHS Harlow Carr was made from limestone pavement, before the wholesale destruction of this habitat was made illegal.

We will be making a return visit to the site as it was so beautiful. We had fantastic views of buzzards overhead, and sighted a cuckoo. SomeBeans also discovered a wood for sale. Unfortunately at over £400,000, it was a little out of our price range. This time, however, we'll have spare batteries.

Lots more information about limestone pavement can be found here.

Just remember...

...seeds really do just want to grow. A bit of moisture and some warmth is all they need.

Even when the moisture is from a trip through the washing machine and the warmth is from the airing cupboard. Yes, these kale seeds spent a few days in the dark germinating, before I discovered them in my gardening trousers after having sown most of their little friends at the allotment the week before. Oops. Still, it makes a change from tissues in the pockets.

The blue touch paper has been lit

Purple fireworks are coloured by a mixture of strontium carbonate and copper oxide. All that is needed to make the alliums explode into a thousand scintillating stars is a few more days of sunshine.

Does anyone else ever get the temptation...

...to stick a whacking great hand print right into the middle of prize-winning alpine plants which have taken years to reach rotund perfection?

No? Just me then.

Irrelevance!

I feel proud and delighted to have won an award for irrelevance to gardening. The anonymous simian, the Garden Monkey, has been running his/her Fork'N Monkey 2009 awards (where all the worthy winners and nominees can be found).

In amongst such illustrious winners as Nigel Colbourn, James Alexander-Sinclair and VP, I won the award for Complete Irrelevance for my celebration of cats and bad poetry (and bad acronyms as it was later pointed out to me). The previous link gives some of the history of the event. Click here for links to all those who were kind/foolish enough to take part.

Thank you to those who remembered this event and voted in the poll - I'm so chuffed about the award that I have (at least temporarily) renamed the blog in honour. And to those who took part in or suffered the LAPCPADPOUB day event - don't worry, I think it was a one off. Probably...