I took these pictures yesterday for The Patient Gardener 's End of Month View ...
I thought it would be a good idea to spend my gardening time trying to find a book to read for Sage Butterfly's Earth Day reading project. I searched the local library and bookshop but couldn't find any books that I wanted to recommend. I don't buy stuff off the internet unless absolutely desperate - as that wasn't an option, I searched on-line for a poem instead.
After all the wind and rain we had yesterday, this seemed appropriate : Earth Voices
A poem written by Bliss Carman, who was awarded the title of Canadian Poet Laureate - officially or unofficially, it's not clear from references. However today, it seems that he's not recognised as one of the great poets - according to critics, he wrote prolifically but his work didn't show much development through his career. I actually don't know the difference between a good and bad poem, I know there are some that rhyme and some that don't, hopefully Earth Voices is remembered as one of his better ones. I suspect it rhymes a bit too much, like a nursery rhyme, but I like the pictures of nature that it paints and how it emphasises that this planet belongs to the elements - what's taken needs to be returned.
But the end of the month is today ...
The views above don't show the foxgloves which are all that I can see. Now might be a good time to make some notes, before they get infested ...
Below on the left are self-seeded, second generation foxgloves in the woodland. I made a conscious decision to leave this area untouched after planting the first foxgloves here in 2010. A large population of babies started to appear soon after the parents finished flowering, I had to resist the temptation to thin them. Compared to plants on the right grown from packet seeds sown a few months earlier, transplanted into a nursery and thinned; there's not much difference in size.
It was worth the trouble though, because it seems that "my creations" are going to flower first.
Below on the left is one of the plants from my nursery that was transplanted after thinning. On the right are my deliberately stalled seedlings, which have taken to their new home. Even though they still look tiny, it could be possible that they flower later in the year as they have been over-wintered. Possibly saving the best till last, as they were grown from seeds collected last year from my favourite foxgloves - lime-green with olive speckles and white with burgundy speckles.
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