Gardening therapy

Never have lawns been as neatly mowed, fences so carefully painted and weeds so assiduously removed. In this astonishingly warm and sunny spell housebound gardeners have been hard at it but, I hope, have shown clemency to some of the less pernicious weeds.


For our part weeding has been the main activity. I have been forced to bite the bullet and dig out some pasque flowers. Some clumps have produced blooms which are neither red nor rich purple but a rather wishy-washy mauve. They have been removed. Their vigorous growth has been smothering more delicate species. How many people would love a problem with rampant pasque flowers!


Gone too are swathes of Sea Heath, Frankenia laevis. It is an interesting British native and a member of the tiny Frankeniaceae Family. I have used it to sprawl over, and thus disguise, an ugly tree stump but it has gone crazy.

Sea Heath sprawls over a dead stump. Our garden at Stefen Hill, Daventry.

11 April, 2020

It has small, rather pretty pink flowers in the summer but much of it had to go. I am also waging war on Pratia pedunculata, aka Lobelia pedunculata. This attractive Australian member of the Campanula family spreads via underground stolons and is very difficult to eradicate. The Royal Horticultural Society lists it as a garden thug but, very hypocritically, continues to sell it at their garden centres such as Rosemoor.


It was while I was working at the Pratia that I glanced over to the Snake's Head Fritillaries
and saw a familiar but unwelcome red shape on a stem. It was the dreaded Lily Beetle, Lilioceris lilii.

Lily Beetle on a Snake's Head Fritillary stem. Our garden, Stefen Hill,

Daventry. 11 April, 2020

Using the unfamiliar camera retrieved yesterday I managed a reasonable picture. The beetle did not survive to see Easter Day!

One of the weeds I removed was a dandelion with a fasciated stem and flower. I have spoken of fasciation before and so will say nothing further, except to say that I always keep a look out for examples. Sad!

Dandelion with fasciated stem and capitulum. Our garden again.

11 April, 2020

In this example today both stem and flower had taken on a flattened form, one of the most familiar forms of fasciation.