Pastel Perfect

I was surprised to see that I hadn't already blogged this picture, because I am quite fond of it! I love the colours of the hydrangea and the contrast with the little marmalade hoverfly (which looks like it's balancing on one leg in that picture).

Whilst I don't know the name of this kind of hydrangea (I would guess it's hydrangea macrophylla?), it's apparently a lacecap as opposed to a mophead - meaning that it has large, showy but sterile flowers around the outer edge of a number of much smaller fertile ones -you can see the two types in the picture. Mophead hydrangeas are the ones you immediately think of when someone leaps out from behind a wall and shouts "hydrangea!" - i.e., the ones with big round fluffy-looking flowerheads. The colour of your hydrangeas will be affected by the pH of the soil, which is rather interesting.

Foxglove

This is a foxglove. I believe it is the Common Foxglove, digitalis purpurea (which sounds like some kind of hideous rash you might get on your hands.. but no matter). It's an interesting name and one apparently widely open to debate, but according to some 19th Century book of botany quoted on Wikipedia: "In south of Scotland it is called 'bloody fingers', more northward, 'deadman's bells'", which seem like unnecessarily gruesome names for what is quite a pretty plant. Probably this comes from the fact that it's extremely poisonous, as the leaves, flowers and seeds all contain digitoxin. Digitoxin has been used as a treatment for heart failure, as pioneered by William Withering (fabulous name for a botanist).

Withering also recommended it for the treatment of dropsy, a hilarious-sounding old fashioned disease which, I've just discovered, was an archaic name for oedema (Edema, if you're American. Or just can't spell). I always feel faintly guilty when I find the names for medical conditions funny. Like botulism. I don't know why, but the name just amuses me, whereas I suspect the actual condition itself would very definitely not...

Cyclamen

These are cyclamen, and very nice they are too. I like their little wiggly stalks, they're like pig's tails. And they grow out of a corm, which is an excellent word.

Another excellent word I discovered recently is globster: an unidentified mass of organic matter washed up on a shoreline, and the source of many a sea monster myth. Apparently decomposing basking sharks strongly resemble plesiosaurs. Who knew?

Incidentally, Wikipedia has a page entitled "exploding whales". And believe me when I say it's a blast.

Grapes!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was leaving the house, I heard the sound of someone singing a song - apparently a song entitled "everyone loves grapes". I deduced that this was the title because these were the only words.

I walked my usual route and quickly noticed that a stick was protruding from the high fence around the house at the end of the road. From the stick hung a piece of string, and a small bunch of grapes was tied to the string so they dangled at about head height for anyone walking by. Two children were sitting at the top of the fence and appeared to be the grape-stewards.

"Do you want a grape?" the small girl cried jubilantly as I approached.
"Er, no thank you," I said. "But it's very kind of you to ask."
"Grapes!" she said. "Grapes!"
"Grapes!" cried her brother. And they resumed singing.

***

When I returned from work at the end of the day, the empty grapestalk was hanging forlornly at the end of its string next to a hand-written sign that said "Grapes! Help yourselves!"

Stripes

I'm still annoyed at myself for having sliced off the edges of the petals in this picture. I was in a hurry, we were just about to leave the garden when I suddenly saw these flowers and they really struck me. The combination of very vibrant, unusual colours with a rather standard and unexciting shape is refreshing.

Oddlings & Ends says: Hello, World!

Hello, world!

I suspect this blog will largely be a means of justifying my obsession with photographing flowers and occassional pretty things. Henceforth, when I am standing in a garden taking pictures of the same poppy for ten straight minutes, when everyone else is already longing to seek out the tea room, I will be able to grandly announce: "It's for my blog, you know!"

And everyone will be impressed.