I have been working at the Botanical Gardens in some capacity, either as a volunteer, intern or staff on and off for nearly 4 years and yet there are still days when I find something or see something that brings me joy. Yesterday that was finding a plant that I had no idea we even had in the garden. In the taste arbour, growing apparently all by itself is a Gloriosa Lily. This flower is a climber and it has the most unusual and lovely flowers. It climbs by leaf tendrils. The end of the leaf tapers into a long and thin tendril that wraps around the tree or branch it's climbing. Apparently they are propagated by tubers but where the tuber came from is a mystery. We are going to leave it until it has finished this set of flowering and then try and move it to the sight arbour and see if we can find any of the tubers to try and propagate it. The most unusual thing about it is that we were at Romney Manor Botanical gardens a couple of weeks ago and we saw it there. Of course I had total plant envy because it's such a pretty plant and then this week, here it is growing all by itself. Maybe it was the garden fairies planting it just for me?
The other thing that makes me exceedingly happy in the garden is working in the shadehouse with all my little plant babies and with the projects we have at the moment for the Prince Bernard Culture Fund and LVV there is always plenty to do. I took about 120 slips of Cashew yesterday to pot up. They were all growing under the tree we have in the taste arbour. I also got about 40 slips of Almond, again just growing there under the tree. We have been getting steady rain for the last couple of months now so all these seeds that have been sitting there just biding their time are now bursting into life. Of course my grass is growing faster than I can cut it back but what's new?!
We have also been giving the medicinal garden some real love. I was busy with signage for the garden last week and this week we have been weeding and cutting back the basil which has gone insane covering up the Plumbago and generally trying to take over the whole bed (pesto anyone?) It's really starting to come on nicely now though. The grass is growing on the pathways and is now at a stage that we can weedwhack it and everything is filling out really well.
Next week we are having a sensory garden week. I need to prune the hell out of everything pretty much so lots more cuttings for my shadehouse... woo hoo!! I will post some pics next week on how stuff is coming on and I will post a pic of our lovely new addition as well.
As ever, much love from the garden on the golden rock.
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