Something is moving

I cut myself out from everything about gardening lately (blogs included). The anticipation was too much for me, so I tried and concentrate in other things, at least until I found the latest issue of Gardens Illustrated by the door, coming home from work, and a few days later some friends asked us if we were up to an annual flower show not far from here.

We went to this flower show for the latest three years in a row and the last time I promised I won’t come back again, ever. I’ve been rather disappointed with the prices of the tickets, the parking, the food and the plants on sale inside, and after all the show didn’t worth that much. Now I know you might think I am a very consistent guy and I kept my world but… surprise, surprise… I didn’t.

There were only a couple of interesting stands, though, one was about old fruit trees and I didn’t take pictures because there was actually nothing to see but bare sticks. One other was about roses and I didn’t take pictures because I was too busy spending money (but I’ll talk later about this), and the third one was about animals made of wreckage.

I took a lot of pictures because I’ve been thinking about adding some sculptures to the garden, lately, and this kind of things could really suit me and my garden, I think. I simply love them.

But I told you we spend all the money we had left in roses, right? And still we left a 5€ debt to the lady owner, who let us go shaking her head and smiling… It’s a shame I couldn’t take pictures of the stand, because it was bursting with nice plants of roses, incredibly already in flower. I had some roses that I was looking for and planned to buy on my way to a journey to Rome that at last we didn’t make so I started pocking around this stand and found everything but what I was looking for except for a rambler rose ‘Violette’. Another rose, apparently very similar to ‘Violette’, caught my attention but the lady owner told me that it was an unlabeled hybrid musk. I really liked it, so I bought it. Then I also bought ‘Trier’, the founder of all hybrids musk, and a rather recent rose ‘Jacqueline du Prè’ bred in UK and named after this British cellist dead in the late ’80s. I love this rose because of its off-white and the prominent lilac stamens.

As soon as I got home I did some research about the unlabeled hybrid musk and I found out it could be a rather common ‘Robin Hood’  or maybe ‘Sibelius’ bred by Lens. I hope for the second one but I need to wait a little more: flowers had a slightly different colour after one week inside the fair and God only knows what to make them bloom in march…

When we got home I realized that during this last week daffodils put on a lot of growth, roses and fruit trees buds are getting ready to burst open, some grasses are leafing and the air smells differently from winter: sweeter and warmer.

There are a lot of viola odorata flowering here and there, they are native here and although there are many colours of native violas (from white to deep purple) I only have the deep purple ones in my garden. Not bad: the darker the colour, the stronger the scent. Then I also have small flowered pansies self seeding all around, I want to try them on a salad once, people says they taste nice…

The vegetable garden is also stating to grow again, although my winter project hasn’t been as productive as I thought: Brussel sprouts are kind of undeveloped, fennels have rotten, and green cauliflowers are undeveloped too. Anyway red chicory ‘Verona’ are heartening up, resembling a japanese peony and I’m rather happy with all the rose cuttings that seem to have officially overwintered.

Another thing I am very pleased with in the veggie garden is the artichoke and cabbage ‘Nero di Toscana’ combo. They are finally growing as I intended.

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Tags: hybrid musk, Jacqueline du Prè, Roses, vegetable garden, viola odorata, Violette

• 12 March 2013
• Cà Rossa
• 27 Comments