Sweet William

Jude's middle name is William and his mum has a special fondness for Sweet Williams because of this. So here's both my sweet Williams! The flowers I sowed from seed last year and, being biennials, completely forgot about them until they unexpectedly flowered this year. They have the most fantastic, vivid colour and the flowers last for weeks, both on the plant and when cut to bring indoors.

I rarely go up to the allotment these days, even though it's only a couple of metres from the house: there's so much that needs doing up there that I find it all quite depressing. All my time is spent with Tula, doing housework, or knitting. I feel a huge amount of guilt about seeing plants that I've grown from seed being neglected (by me), so it's enormously encouraging to see that some things are doing just fine by themselves with no help from me at all!

Jude's decided to do some work on the LandRover, having found that the bulkhead is rusted (this means NOTHING to me, except that it must equal 'not good'): the workmanlike attire should inspire confidence, but is somehow offset by the vaguely worrying frown  - seeing as he's reading the manual of the car he's already taken to pieces...

One LandRover, missing most of, well everything as far as I can see...

This is what the driver's side looks like inside! Yikes - I wouldn't even know how the steering wheel goes back on!

Although I have every confidence in Jude's abilities, I can't help but feel slightly worried that the single most expensive thing we own is currently in pieces...

So let's look at the lovely flowers again instead!!

Another little flower, quietly getting bigger!

tbc :-/

Corpse Flower in bloom

Pretty exciting stuff this: amorphophallus titanum or titanum arum is the largest flower in the world. Also known as the Corpse Flower for the aroma of rotting flesh it gives off when in bloom, it is native to Sumatra. The plants blossom very infrequently, and when they do, the flower only lasts for a couple of days before collapsing. The flower can reach over 10ft in height, the leaf structure 20ft tall and nearly as much wide.


Here is a link to a live shot of a bud at Cornell University which is likely to open up in the next few days. It is growing about 2 inches a day, and on March 13th measured 57 inches long.


Thanks to Kathrin at annekata for the link. You can also see some lovely pics of civil war quilts in the same post.