IF you see a haze of blue in May in a grassy meadow or on a woodland edge, it’s probably going to be starry flowered camassias stretching up to Heaven. These American bulbs, once an important source of food for native North Americans, were officially discovered in 1806 by Capt Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, so they’re not merely beautiful. Their tendency to flower later than most bulbs helps to fill the May gap and their ability to tolerate moister conditions than most bulbs means they can be grown in a greater variety of situations. They make a perfect entrée for a summer-flowering wildflower meadow and they’re an essential part of Highgrove’s four-acre meadow in The Prince of Wales’s Gloucestershire garden, rising above buttercups and pre-empting wild orchids. Elegant, yet understated, camassias are also planted in the long grass at Great Dixter in East Sussex.
The fashion for making sustainable wildflower meadows has led to a surge of interest in camassias. Stella Exley, of Hare Spring Cottage in North Yorkshire, has developed a Plant Heritage Collection, having fallen under their spell almost 30 years ago. ‘We went to look at a house in South Devon, with a view to buying, and there was a haze of blue on the woodland edge,’ she recalls. ‘It was late April and that hue of blue mesmerized me. I’d never seen them before. I’d never heard of them, although I was into bulbs. Within days, I’d bought my first potfuls.’
Hazy blue tinged with gold: camassias and malus blossom at Pettifers in Oxfordshire, designed by Gina Price
Denne historien er fra May 06, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 06, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
