flower portraits – Page 12 – Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature

Late Sunshine

September 10, 2023September 9, 2023 Ann Mackay22 Comments

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Officially it’s autumn, but summer is determined to cling on here. Temperatures are breaking records for this time of year (over 30C for several days). So it feels appropriate to post a collection of bold yellows this week, a colour that makes me think of a child’s drawing of the sun.

The yellow lily demanded my attention as it gleamed in the sunlight and flaunted its brilliant colour against a dark background. It, and most of the other flowers here, were photographed during garden visits. (This spectacular lily was photographed at Fullers Mill, which I have posted about several times: here, another here, and again here.)

Left: evening primrose Right: yellow helenium — Left: evening primrose, right: helenium (sneezeweed)

The helenium (above, right) and the Anthemis daisies (below) were also photographed in other people’s gardens. I’ve visited a lot of gardens this year, making up for previous years when Covid caused the cancellation of many garden-openings. It has been a lot of fun and a great way to see plants I don’t grow here, many new to me.

The evening primrose shown above is the one flower here that was photographed in my own garden. It is Oenothera macrocarpa (Missouri evening primrose, bigfruit evening primrose), a low-growing perennial that sprawls happily in the dry soil here. The flowers of this evening primrose are a bit darker and a more lemony yellow than the taller evening primroses that also grow well here. Their flowers are larger too, opening in the afternoon and persisting well into the next morning before fading.

The last plant in this post, Anthemis tinctoria, is one that also grows in my own garden. Mine, however, is ‘E.C. Buxton’, which has much paler petals (actually ray florets). I don’t know what the cultivar in the photo here is, but I was impressed by the richness of its colour. Just the thing for a post inspired by sunshine!

Dark and Dramatic

September 3, 2023September 1, 2023 Ann Mackay20 Comments

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There are a couple of white astrantias in my own garden which are very pretty and delicate-looking. Lovely as they are, they don’t have the sultry and rather dramatic good looks of this astrantia, photographed in a garden I visited recently.

I don’t know the name of this particular astrantia cultivar. A quick look around with Google has shown me that there are now many cultivars in a range of pink, red and burgundy shades. All are stunningly beautiful, so you can imagine how tempted I am by them…nothing surprising there, hehe!

Fortunately for me, they don’t take up a huge amount of space, so I should be able to fit one or two in here. (But they do prefer a more moisture-retentive soil than we have, so a good addition of compost would be necessary first.)

Dark flowers and foliage have a strong appeal for me. They help to prevent borders from looking a bit too sweet and add a suggestion of mystery and moody allure. My only problem will be deciding which of the dark astrantias to go for!

Similar but Different: Orange and White Lilies

August 27, 2023August 26, 2023 Ann Mackay10 Comments

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It’s a fascination to me to see how diverse cultivars of the same flower species can be. If you think of something like dahlias, for instance, there’s a massive variation between their flower types. But even flowers that might sound the same when described can actually look quite different.

The lily flowers here are similar enough that when I reviewed my pictures after a garden-visit, I initially thought I had two sets of photos of the same plant. As soon as I paid them proper attention, I realised that they were in fact quite unalike. They have only superficial similarities of colour and flower shape.

At first glance, both lilies have swept-back (‘recurved’) petals and an orange and white colouration to their flowers. But a second look shows that the orange of the lily below is much softer and more muted than the one above. Additionally, the top lily has dark speckles on its petals and little bumps called ‘papillae’. (I’ve read that these papillae are important, because they secrete a substance that attracts insects. They are also exploited by lily breeders to produce a different look to flowers.)

I don’t grow lilies in my own garden (because I have cats and lilies would be a danger to them), so I don’t often get the chance to look at lily flowers very closely. Seeing and photographing them in other people’s gardens feels like a little voyage of exploration – one I enjoy tremendously! 🙂

Into the Blue: Agapanthus

August 20, 2023August 19, 2023 Ann Mackay21 Comments

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I’ve been very busy in both house and garden recently and haven’t had so much time for photography here. (There has been a lot of change in the garden, which has created plenty of work to do. At the same time, work on the house has meant lots of rearrangement and change there too.)

But I have made time to visit a number of local gardens, so I’ve photographed flowers in them instead. That’s good, because it allows me to photograph plants I couldn’t otherwise. However, this is one that I should have been able to photograph at home. I left it a bit late, and my own agapanthus had too many flowers that were starting to go over. Happily, I’d already photographed these in someone else’s garden.

These flowers are actually a stronger colour than mine, which are a much paler blue. The individual flowers are a good size too. I find that my agapanthus can sometimes produce very small flowers and I wonder if it’s because they aren’t getting enough moisture. (I should probably water them more often!) If that’s the case, the extra rain this summer will have been a big help.

The blues of agapanthus are absolutely lovely, but they have other colours that are beautiful too. I’ve seen a fabulous deep purple that I like (‘Black Jack’), and I’m also tempted by some of the paler purples and a white tinged with blue…I would need a bigger garden to fit them all in! 🙂

Missing but Not Forgotten: Penstemons

August 13, 2023August 12, 2023 Ann Mackay11 Comments

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These penstemons aren’t growing in my own garden, but they do remind me of plants that I grew here until last winter. Sadly, the colder-than-usual winter killed off several penstemons that I’d had for a few years.

Penstemon ‘Raven’ is very similar to the plant above, with flowers of a fabulously deep purple that has a magenta tinge. I miss it! There will certainly be more of it in the garden again, but in future I’ll more careful to take cuttings that can be kept somewhere away from the frost.

Another of the penstemons that I lost was ‘Hidcote Pink’ – a very pretty salmon-pink that was a bit different to the other shades of pink here. (My other pinks have a bit more blue in them.) It would be welcome in the garden again. But perhaps the most missed of the lost penstemons is deep red ‘Garnet’, which I’d had for years. This one might perhaps have made it through the winter if it hadn’t already been struggling a little. (The ground level where it was growing had been disturbed a bit when building the pond. This meant that the ground around it drained much more and became a bit too dry for the plant…oops!)

I love the rich colours and the attractive markings inside the throat of penstemon flowers, so I’ll be keen to grow more of them in future. (Bees love them too, and it’s amusing to see their little furry bottoms sticking out of the bell-shaped flowers – a bonus!) At this stage of the summer, I may leave it to next spring to buy more plants though. And I will have to be more careful about protecting them from harsh winter weather. The effort will be worth it to see these beauties in my garden again.

Garden-Visit Treats: Daylilies

August 6, 2023August 5, 2023 Ann Mackay19 Comments

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Wandering around other people’s gardens gives me a chance to see flowers that I don’t have in my own garden. It’s one of the pleasures of visiting them, especially the large and well-stocked gardens that can afford to grow a wide range of plants. Sometimes I find plants I’ve never seen, except possibly in photos, and other times I see plants I can’t grow at home.

Daylilies (Hemerocallis), like those shown here, are too toxic to cats for me to risk growing. (Like Lilium species, daylilies are deadly to cats, even in small amounts – so much so that the water from a vase that the flowers have been in is toxic to them.) So seeing them elsewhere is a rare opportunity for me to photograph these beauties.

If it wasn’t for the risk to my cats, I might be tempted by the vibrant colours of daylilies, especially the fabulous purple shade of the flower above. As it is, I will just have to admire them when I see them, and perhaps be lucky enough to be able to photograph them too.

An Oddity!

July 30, 2023July 29, 2023 Ann Mackay15 Comments

Daucus carota showing aberration of flower

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From year to year, many of the flowers in my garden are the same. Most are perennials, but there are also the annual and biennial self-seeders that have become established here. So each season has a familiar look, with perhaps a few recent additions or a few losses.

Something did manage to surprise me this summer – the unusually enlarged flower head of the wild carrot (Daucus carota) pictured above. This is the mixed deep-red to white variety ‘Dara’, which I sowed a few years ago. A biennial, it has been self-seeding here ever since. The shape of this particular flower has gone very much awry, perhaps due to disease or an attack by an insect.

The flower should be a simple umbel (a shape like the frame of an upturned umbrella), like the one shown below. If you look at the structure of it, you’ll see that the ‘umbrella frame’ of stems each end in a similar structure, but in miniature. (These are known as ‘umbellules’ or ‘umbellets’ and make up a ‘compound umbel’.) The normal flower in the picture below is in the process of opening into the flatter shape of the maturing flower head.

The newly-emerging wild carrot flowers — This normal wild carrot flower has just begun to open.

So what has happened to produce the strange flower head here? Somehow it has produced an extra ring of smaller umbels around the central umbel. Each of these has then gained a ring of umbellules on longer stems than usual, giving the appearance of being surrounded by tiny satellites. It is as if the instruction for growing into a normal flower have become corrupted and caused repeats in the flower’s structure. Whatever the cause, I’m intrigued by this flower and I’m wondering how it will develop. What will happen when it tries to fold into the ‘nest’ shape that the seed-heads normally become? If it survives long enough, I’ll let you know what happens… 🙂

You can see more pictures of how wild carrot normally looks and develops here.

A single Daucus carota flower head, showing an aberration in its structure.

A Meadow Beauty: Sainfoin

July 16, 2023July 18, 2023 Ann Mackay19 Comments

Flower of sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia)

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The flowers of sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) were sprinkled throughout the meadow that I wrote about in last week’s post. It’s a plant that I had never seen before. I was enchanted by the spikes of delicate pink flowers with darker pink veining, so I took the opportunity to photograph it.

Reading up about this grassland plant afterwards, I discovered that it is a native of Europe and Asia. Sainfoin is an ancient forage crop grown to feed cattle, sheep and horses. It fell from favour in modern times but is apparently making a comeback. The plant has several benefits, including controlling worms in grazing animals and improving the quality of the soil by fixing nitrogen. (The common names of ‘healthy hay’ and ‘holy hay’ reflect the benefits to livestock.)

But it’s not the usefulness to animals that caught my attention. I’m far more interested in the benefits that sainfoin offers to bees and other pollinators. Apparently sainfoin produces large amounts of both pollen and nectar, making it very attractive to pollinating insects, including bumblebees and butterflies.

This suggests that it would be worth growing in a selection of wildflowers for a semi-wild area that will be a habitat for wildlife. It’s an idea that appeals to me greatly, but I would need to be able to fit my wild patch into a small space. A possibility for next year… 🙂

Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) with ox-eye daisies

Meadow Wildflowers (1)

July 9, 2023July 8, 2023 Ann Mackay24 Comments

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An awareness of the importance of wildflowers in creating spaces for nature is growing in the UK. Plants for bees and other insects are recognised as being vital to help species survive. Many gardeners are trying to help nature by allowing their gardens to become a little wilder, and some are creating their own ‘meadow’ areas within their gardens.

Recently I visited a large garden at a Suffolk farm and had a walk around the adjacent wildflower meadow. There are already a few wildflowers in my own garden and I’m interested to see what else I can grow to encourage insect life. (But without letting something take over the garden, e.g. white deadnettle. Although its flowers are great for bees in the early part of the year, I’m finding it almost impossible to stop the plant from spreading everywhere.)

I’m on the lookout for wildflowers to grow, but I know that the plant in my top photograph is unlikely to appear in my garden. It’s a bee orchid (Ophrys apifera), an orchid that is native to the UK. This is a cheeky wee plant – the flowers mimic female bees so that the male bee comes along hoping to mate, but pollinates the flowers instead. (A bit disappointing for the bee, I reckon!) An uncommon plant, however, it does appear in meadows here in the east of England.

The plant below is one that I do already have, but mine is growing in a pot. This is bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), another native grassland plant which grows throughout the UK. The flowers are a great source of nectar for bees and it is a food plant for caterpillars too. It was interesting to see how it grows in the wild, but because the RHS website says it can become invasive, I will probably keep mine in its pot. (I like the idea of having pots of it dotted around the garden in sunny spots. The bees and butterflies would love it.)

Unfamiliar to Me: Dictamnus albus

July 2, 2023June 30, 2023 Ann Mackay31 Comments

Dictamnus albus var. purpureus (Gas Plant)

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This is a plant I’d not seen before – Dictamnus albus (also known as dittany, burning bush, or gas plant). I photographed both the pink and white varieties in a garden I visited recently, then spent a few days trying to figure out what it was. It would have been a good idea to ask the owner of the garden, but she was busy trying to cope with the demand for her excellent coffee and cakes at the time.

Seeing new plants while visiting gardens is fascinating and often gives me ideas for things I’d like to grow. (The ‘want to grow’ list is too long for the garden to accommodate it – a common problem for gardeners!) It’s usually not too difficult to find out the names of plants by using the internet or books. But this one had me stumped for a while.

The flowers seemed like a larger version of gaura flowers, especially in the stamens having such long filaments, but the growth habit was entirely different. The stems of this plant were very upright and individual flowers were held on short stalks, unlike the long, floaty stems of the gaura.

I eventually found a photograph of the plant by doing a Google search for ‘star-shaped seed pod’. There were lots of photos of star anise to wade through before I found one of the Dictamnus. Identified at last!

My search also told me the reason for two of the plant’s common names. ‘Burning bush’ and ‘gas plant’ refer to the fact that the plant emits a volatile oil on sunny days. Apparently this can be set alight without causing any harm to the plant. But it might not be a good idea to try this if the plant is in a garden that you’re visiting!