Friday, June 29, 2012

garden wild horseless -carriages









Gardens grow in surprising places  - this one entirely by chance on the roof of a building in The High Street. The plant which the pigeon seems to be enjoying is yellow fumitory. The plant  is prolific round here, flourishing in the angles of walls and footpaths.

A local blogger (Anke The Royal Tunbridge Wells Blog) has published a photograph of the insect-attracting plants on the corner of the lawn opposite The Town Hall.  To my dismay he doesn't  approve of the mass of wild  and semi-wild flowers clustered in charming natural disorder. "They get my goat," he says. But they make to my way of thinking a welcome change, to  the regimented lines of brightly coloured bedding plants favoured by most council gardeners. As I stand to admire the scene a young man joins me. "They've made a good job of this!" he says, and begins to identify the flowers. Together we note borage, woundwort (of which he supplies the name) different mints, poppies and marigolds a-plenty. Bronze fennel bends its fine petioles above the bank of the bed. "Look there's a bumble bee," he says. It works, and at the very centre of the town, passing traffic notwithstanding.

 Technology marches on. I read in a letter to The Financial Times of Queen Victoria's reaction to the  "horseless carriage"   "I hope you will never allow one of those terrible machines to be used in my stables."




















2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anke doesn't disapprove of the lovely flower-bed - just of the hideous plastic pots further along.

Unknown said...

Relievedl to hear it. The plastic pots are an abomination. Sorry I missed that point
Tw needs Anke.