Some memories of April 2020

There are projects to collect people’s memories of these strange times. I have only referred to Covid-19 indirectly on this blog. Looking through my photos for inspiration for this post, I found a post mark and two photos recording a mystery in the garden.

Postmark with more than one purpose

The postmark is perhaps of some historic significance. It shows the three sentence instructions from the UK government, which were in force for several weeks. On 10^th March they were replaced by:

Stay Alert. Control the virus. Save lives.

The mystery concerned a camellia, which hubby had bought at a supermarket just before the lockdown was announced on 23 March. He planted it in a bigger pot, using the soil it had arrived with and home-made compost. (Kitchen waste from the compost-caddy and  weed-free garden waste rotted down with  horse manure from the local stables.)

Very quickly lots of dicotyledons appeared. We waited until the mystery plants revealed their identity before weeding. The question is, had the seeds passed through the horses’ digestive systems?

Mystery plants

Trefoils

 

(They were clover seedlings.)

Curiosity can be good for the mind!

On the Hunt for Joy – Week 19 – Plant sunflowers

This week’s On the Hunt for Joy Challenge from Cee Neuner is for pictures of sunflowers. Other plants are also allowed!

Using the search facility on my computer and the keyword ‘yellow’, I found a photo of a sunflower. We haven’t grown any for a long time. This year we are growing wallflowers from seed I collected and hubby planted and tended. He has prepared a strip of garden for them later. (When I looked round the garden in March I thought we had lost our wallflowers!)

A sunflower

Wallflower seedlings

Skimmia

A shrub in our garden came from a nursery. When we bought it, we were unaware that it came in two sorts – male and female! Ours is a male. It produces lots of scented, pollen-laden flowers in spring. Serendipitously our next-door neighbour has a female, which produces red berries later in the year. Either it has grown through the fence or self-seeded in our garden as we now enjoy both sorts. Many people mistake these plants for laurel, a popular hedging plant.

My photos are from the beginning and end of April, showing the changes which occur after pollination.

Male flowers

Detail of male flower

Female flowers and berries

New berries forming

Male flowers still colourful