Chimney Pots and French Gardening

Last week we finally moved some furniture from Dad’s house and suddenly the Ugly Bungalow is looking a bit more like a home and less like a transit camp. Over the last few weeks we have worked like dogs to try to get a few walls painted, electrics done, shelves up, boxes moved, (again and again and again) and finally emptied…At last Chris has Dad’s old desk instead of a picnic table to work on and I have some shelves and I’m hoping the 60’s style glass fronted bookcases will come galloping back into fashion very soon.

As well as furniture we also brought back the two old chimney pots which were a present from me to Mum many years ago. They are not the fancy beautiful twisted ones but are quite plain and square. However they do have a known history, being the old Post Office pots from the village where I used to live.


One of my relocated Chimney pots. Now the right way up.

For some reason these poor things spent their life upside down at my parent’s house..something to do with “practicality” and the sizes of plant pots and I don’t think my father liked them very much. He though it odd to use chimney pots as decorative items… maybe for forcing rhubarb…but his rhubarb never seemed to need forcing. 

I haven’t got round to rhubarb yet but when I do  "Every Woman's Encyclopaedia", has this useful advice and a photo.

The Garden - Small Holdings For Women By A. C. Marshall, F.r.h.s.,

“Ordinary chimney-pots costing Is. 3d. apiece may be used for forcing early rhubarb, and are as effective as rhubarb pots costing 3s”

This is of course Old Money…about 6p in today’s currency. Now they cost just a bit more.

I have always admired chimney pots, with their mixture of practicality and design. A great example of “form following function”. The whole subject, the varieties and their manufacture, is endlessly fascinating. Many are very beautiful and decorative and there is one called “a beehive”.. a good plain speaking and practical design.

Here is a Yorkshire “Beehive” chimney pot from Leeds. Excellent I think for rhubarb.

The image is from the American Company Chimneypot.com where you can find many beautiful repro and original pots. 

Lance Bates in the UK is a chimney pot lover, spotter and collector and owned  the Museum of Chimney pots up in Burslem.. In 2009 Lance appeared on the BBC talking about his passion and here he is with some of his 2,500 pots at an exhibition at Ceramica in 2010. I think they are magnificent.

"I liked the shapes, and the fact that to produce a chimney you need a combination of art, science and engineering," ..

 

I know the Museum had to close (due yet again to the joyless ones) and was hoping to reopen with some funding. I wish him well and do hope he succeeds in finding a home for his fabulous and enviable collection. He compiled this sheet of images for the chimney pot spotter. The designer in me loves it!

If you are a real enthusiast and are rich you can maybe find a copy of "Chimney Pots and Stacks - An Introduction to Their History, Variety and Identification ", written by Valentine Fletcher. It is the standard work on the British domestic chimney pot. Published in 1969, it is now very expensive! He made a collection of over 150 chimney pots from all over the world, which you can now see at Bursledon Brickworks. Here are a few ….

Photo from CleanerChimneys  who are helping the museum identify them.

It seems that chimney pots appeared in the UK in the 13th Century .. here, from those early days: “This cheeky chimney pot (or, more properly, a smoke-vent) once belched smoke from a merchant’s house in the High Street of fourteeth century Oxford.”


Image and more info at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford.

Wonderful things chimney pots!

French Gardening

Reading down further in the article : The Garden - Small Holdings For Women By A. C. Marshall, I came across this fascinating insight into “French Gardening” which somehow immediately conjures up visions of saucy frolicking in the veg patch.

In dealing with market gardening for women, the writer has so far refrained from approaching the subject of Intensive Cultivation, or French Gardening. Briefly, the system is to force along very early crops by means of bell-glasses and immense quantities of manure, or else by a system of hot water pipes running beneath the ground. It is a style of gardening that has been much discussed, and there are in this country lady gardeners who are finding it most remunerative. At the same time, the adherents of French gardening who are reaping striking benefits are they who have actually studied on the Continent or under Parisian exponents. Certainly the system is one demanding great financial resources, and the lady with slender capital and only a beginner's knowledge of the rudiments of horticulture should leave French gardening severely alone. After all, we cannot war against our fickle climate; and the Frenchman, with his thousands of cloches, or bell-glasses, has not only the experience of generations on his side, but the sunshine as well.

Oh dear…as a poor creature of “slender capital “ and, sadly not having studied “under Parisian exponents” I guess it’s not for me. But I don’t think we do too badly for sunshine.

Read more: http://chestofbooks.com/food/household/Woman-Encyclopaedia-3/2-The-Garden-Small-Holdings-For-Women.html#ixzz1ogRjo4vK

Tiny Mouse Sketches

Every morning Chris throws out a handful of bird food onto the concrete slabs by the kitchen door. It’s usually the robin, the blackbird and the “Gang of Three” starlings who are first there.

Now we have a tiny mouse who creeps out from behind a planter.. rushes over to snatch a seed or a piece of cheese and rushes back. It is so charming. We only see it when it’s just getting light. It’s hard to see, but the scampering movements and those huge, shining, night vision eyes give it away.

I am sure it is a common long tailed field mouse. Apodemus sylvaticus. All ears, eyes and whiskers, dark grey brown on top with a paler fur underneath.

A few sketches to try to get my right arm and hand back into action. It’s reluctant and tells me it would rather be gardening, and I am very rusty.. in all senses. But work is piling up and its actually lovely to be able to sit down with the radio and my pencils again!

Big Bee Value at B&Q

The DIY store B&Q sometimes have some very good plant bargains, (US readers think “Home Depot”)  Yesterday in Huntingdon a stand of marked down heathers were basking in the early afternoon sun and were covered with bees!  I counted 12 x B terrestris, 2 x B lucorum, 1 x B pratorum, 3 x honey bees and had my first sighting of a solitary bee this year. (Hopefully ID to come.) Some were busy feeding and some tucked in between the flowers, sleeping. For once I happened to have my camera with me so took a few quick snaps.

 

2 Buff Tailed Bumble Bees, B terrestris

B pratorum, The Early Bumble Bee

A rather blurry B lucorum, The White Tailed Bumble bee.

Also enjoying the heather were quite a few flies including two hover flies, which, after my one day course I can now hopefully ID. One was Scaeva pyrastri, the little black and white striped one ( no photo sadly) and this one,

 
which I guess is an Eristalis, a Drone Fly.
Heather is brilliant for bees and there were reports on BWARS, of bees on the heather in Windsor Great Park all through the winter. See Winter Bumble Bees thread on the Forum.
 
On a neighboring stand, high up, were some small narcissi being visited by both B terrestris and this gorgeous B Hypnorum.

B hypnorum, Tree Bumble Bee.

I had not really thought of daffs as a particularly good bee plant but I guess these early bees will just find nectar and pollen where they can. They were also visiting primroses, and big flowered pansies. It is quite a small plant department at Huntingdon but does demonstrate the advantage of having lots of flowering plants all together, making it a worth while stop off for the bees. My three crocuses are not quite doing the job!

Bees in your Bonnet

The bees were delightful to watch and I stayed for about 20 minutes, the staff mercifully just ignored me and although I am not too fond of heathers I did buy a box, (how could I not!) to help fill the Empty Garden along with a great bargain sedum, pretty little “Rose Carpet” which will, I hope, thrive in a sunny spot and be enjoyed by many insects.

I had to gently shake the heathers so as not to inadvertently take home a sleeping bee and I also had to shake my hair because, as well as the heathers, the large drowsy bees are also partial to my hair, which is, to put it mildly rather fluffy and unruly.
Although I seem unable to fight off the inevitable slide into 3rd age eccentricity, I am just not ready to arrive at a shop counter, albeit to buy plants, with bees in my hair .. no, really, not yet.

Perhaps I should take it as a compliment that these lovely creatures find me a reassuring resting point. I remember years ago waking up one spring morning having slept with the window open, to find a large bumble bee next to me on the pillow. It was snuggled up in my hair, buzzing softly and was rather grumpy when asked to move.

Bees in your hair. It is the stuff of limericks.. where is Edward Lear when you need him?

Easton Bees, my first 2012 bee photos

My first 2012 bee photos! Hurrah.  After a great drawing workshop at Stamford Arts centre with my lovely students I went up to Easton Walled Gardens to catch their Snowdrop event.  I am so very fond of this beautiful tranquil place and the gleaming snowdrops were everywhere,  and so many  different varieties, some tall and stately and other low growing and shallow cupped.  Their beauty for me lies in their delicate little nodding heads and  that pure whiteness set against the dark background of winter trees. I may get down to a sketch or two next week. In the class today we were looking at working with pen and ink and this would be a perfect subject.

And then I saw just two big fat glossy Buff Tailed Bumble bee queens, Bombus terrestis, both on the crocus flowers. Here’s a short sequence of one bee as she moves from one flower to another, almost disappearing before backing out again. 

Crocus are a very important early food source for all early bees and so are snowdrops.. but in all those acres of snowdrops I saw only one bee, yet two bees on the relatively few crocus.
I am wondering if, when a choice is available, they prefer a crocus?

It seems particularly appropriate and auspicious that I should photograph my first bees at Easton where, in June, I will be showing my hopefully expanded “Buzz” show, as part of their Meadow Days Celebrations,  and this time with a two day workshop. It is a week I am looking forward to immensely.

First Bees… at last, a Butterfly and Arums

I am so delighted to report my first bee sightings of this year. Not in the empty garden of the Ugly Bungalow where as yet there are only 3 crocuses in bloom but in nearby Brampton Wood where, this morning, in glorious sunshine, a huge and very loud Buff tailed Bumble Bee queen zoomed past my ear. She came so close I had to duck. She flew off into the wood and I wondered what she will find to forage on?

Then further along, glowing such a brilliant yellow against the browns and greys of the leafless wood, a gorgeous brimstone butterfly flew past. It seemed quite magical to see this little piece of fluttering summer colour in the dark wood. It lifted my spirits even more.

I was in the wood to find some bits and pieces for my first drawing workshop on Saturday morning but also just to get out and enjoy the sun. It has seemed a long and dreary month. I am still unable to work but finding beautiful lichen-covered twigs, little acorn cups, old seed pods and new catkins cheered me up immensely. The birds were singing their little hearts out and pushing up through the mossy banks were tiny flat rosettes of primroses and everywhere, unfurling their elegant leaves were wild arums, some spotted and some plain.

These curious plants, always viewed with some suspicion due to their phallic shape, their insect trapping mechanisms and poisonous berries, have many wonderfully descriptive names, Cuckoo Pint, Lords and Ladies, Adam and Eve, Jack in the Pulpit, Wake Robin, Snake Meat, Deadman’s Fingers and more. Some appear quite innocent until you look further into their derivation .. ie “pint” is from the Anglo Saxon, “pintle” meaning penis. I don’t think my mother ever enlightened me of this true meaning. There is a website http://www.wildarum.co.uk/ compiled by Lynden Swift where you will find a list of regional names and more fascinating info.

Two woodcuts of this snaky little plant (interestingly almost reversed, by copying?) from Leonhard Fuchs herbals, the coloured one from 1542 from the Smithsonian collection of Renaissance Herbals here and the other from 1545 from Yale Library here. Fuchs was an advocate of the use of naturalistic images based on real observation which together with text gave double proof of identity. In the past when plants were mainly for medicinal purposes, the constant copying and re-copying of over simplified images led to some disastrous mistaken identities.

I thought I just might find some more bees in the local garden centre which has many more flowers than I do.. but all I could find were just two honey bees. Both had full pollen baskets one bright yellow and the other almost white. I would guess the first had been visiting the crocuses and the other, where I found them both, foraging from the Christmas roses.

In 1538‘ in The Names of Herbes’, William Turner writes of the Arum that it “groweth in euery hedge almost in Englande aboute townes in the sprynge of the yere.”

It think sprynge might well be sprynging :)

Hoverflies: Gardener’s Friends

I have been trying to learn more about pollination and have been asking myself and others the question “If bees are the No 1 insect pollinators who or what are No2 ?”  The broad answer seems to be “flies” and amongst that massive and sometimes unappealing group of insects, hoverflies are possibly number one on the pollinator list.

A couple of weeks ago I knew nothing much about hoverflies, except that since looking for bees I had begun to “see” them more, to notice quite a few different kinds, appreciate their delicate beauty and admire their sometimes expert mimicry of bees and wasps. 
Now, after attending one day of the Hoverfly ID course at the Natural History Museum I understand just a little more about them and know that, with over 250 UK species, they are a huge and complex group of insects.

A hoverfly from a walk here in Grafham in July last year. I think I can now confidently say it is Episyrphus balteatus or the “marmalade hoverfly”. It is very common in the UK and not only a good pollinator but its larvae eat aphids, lots of aphids. According to the Natural History Museum  “Each larva consumes more than 200 aphids during its development”, so definitely the gardener’s friend.

The course was led by Roger Morris author of “Hoverflies of Surrey”, who jointly runs the national Hoverfly Recording Scheme with Dr Stuart Ball.If you are interested in getting to know more about hoverflies go to their website where you will find more info and also details of courses and events coming up. http://www.hoverfly.org.uk. Roger gave us a brief outline of the different species and then it was on to identification of specimens, using “keys” and microscopes. It was my first time for both. It is not easy!

The adult hoverflies are fascinating, beautiful and ancient creatures. It is such a shame that some people think they are wasps and kill them when really they could not be more harmless. I hope to include a couple of paintings of them in this years exhibitions to try to encourage  people to appreciate them more. But it’s not quite so easy to do PR for hoverflies as it is for bees. An insect called a “fly” of any kind has a bad start and it is best not to dwell on some of their questionable choices of accommodation or that that some of the larvae are referred to as “rat tailed maggots”. Not very cuddly, is it…but, of course, what we call them is not their fault

As I am still laid up with a sprained shoulder (not to be recommended) and unable to work, I looked through some old photos and found I had taken quite a few of hoverflies which I am attempting to identify.. with mixed success. I may or may not be right!
I think this below is the beautiful bee mimic hoverfly Volucella bombylans taken Heligan in June.

 

and this one from later in the year at Brampton Wood in October is, I think Helophilus pendulus on Devils Bit Scabious.

 This one from Dads garden in September I think  Volucella pellucens

This one I think could be Eristalis tenax taken late in the year in November when all that was flowering by the lake was the Bristly Ox Tongue.

and another one with slightly different markings

Scaeva pyrastri  I think, from July.

and another which I can’t identify on the brambles

and as I am finishing this Sarah Raven is enthusing about hoverflies on the telly, see “Bees Butterflies and Blooms”.. BBC2.

Some Thoughts about Steam

Everyone seems to have a cold at the moment.. and I am no exception. When it started, well over a week ago it seemed innocent enough. You know the kind, three days with a throat full of barbed wire and another three days with nose full of glue and then it’s over, but not this one. This one has quietly and slowly developed into a real horror ( I don’t get many colds so am whining) A week on and I still have broken glass in my joints and lead in my limbs. Sometimes you think a nice little cold will give you an excuse to snuggle up in bed with a good book and comforting hot drinks but mine seem to rob me of all brain activity so reading has also been impossible. It’s all VERY FRUSTRATING.

Add to that an injured shoulder which is, currently, making it very painful to type or draw and I have been thoroughly miserable. However on Saturday I dragged myself out of bed and wedged my aching arm into the corner of a railway carriage and went to London for a day of Hoverfly Identification at the Natural History Museum.

It will take me a while to get my thoughts and discoveries about the wonderful world of hoverflies down on paper, but the journey to London was rather, unexpectedly, lovely.

Huntingdon to London on a Frosty Saturday Morning
At 7.30 am, when we left the house, the morning was very still and very cold with a full red sun on the horizon cut in half by just one single sliver of cloud. All other colours were frosted and pale. The novelty of seeing a frozen countryside after the eternal green of Florida has not yet worn off. Everything seems so fragile and delicate in comparison. Here tiny twiggy birds nests nestle in bushes or are strung hammock like between branches. There, lines of infinitely varied little naked hedgerow trees are ranked and silhouetted against a rusty sky.

At 8.00am I am on the train travelling South. If I look East everything is back-lit by the sun. If I look West there are long cast shadows. The colours are the palest terre vertes, silvers, lilacs, and oranges. The buildings are black.

This early on such a bitterly cold morning very little is moving, except this train and steam.
Steam is everywhere, taking on many different shapes, sizes and directions. In the stations restless, cold, people, huddled and muffed in scarves and gloves exchange puffs of steaming words. As we travel though the countryside thick steam spirals up from clamps and muck heaps, one has ignited and there’s a rush of scarlet flame. In the fields we pass some stocky gypsy ponies. Haloed with light, they are motionless, their long coats bristling with frost. They blow streams of hot breath from velvety icicle-whiskered noses. They could almost be smoking pipes.

Coming to a light industrial area, tall towers of steam rise straight up from tall chimneys. White cartoon exhaust rings link waiting cars at the crossing gates. Here is a housing estate where the mock Victorian street lights, switched off an hour ago, are fleetingly reignited by a low, now golden, sun and all the identical houses in the identical streets have identical chimneys where all the short bursts of slanting steam are conforming to the will of a slight breeze.
Exuberant bountiful steam from one chimney casts busy shadows onto a nearby wall and light airy-fairy back lit steam drifts up from a square black chimney and evaporates in the morning haze. Higher, much higher up, dead straight vapour trails of planes criss-cross the clear blue sky.

Steam is fascinating.

But as we reach London, where once smog and fog would have choked the life out of you, the rows of Victorian chimneys are quiet and unused. And I remember that long ago, I arrived at Kings Cross, not scurrying in on a little four coach electric train but making a much grander entrance, enveloped in clouds of steam, deafened by noise and giddy with excitement about a day in London, little legs climbing down from a magnificent snorting beast that surely must have been the Flying Scotsman.

The Flying Scotsman steaming out of Kings Cross in 1968 from the Museum of London Collection

Exciting hoverfly info to follow!

A Start with the Bee Plants & Bombus lapidarius sketch

I have spent many, many hours over the past month reading books, seed catalogues and online advice about how to plan the garden, what to plant, where and why. The planning has involved a lot of staring at the mud patch, a huge amount of digging and moving barrow loads of soil from A to B and then on to C and sometimes back to A again. We have added a couple of new paths, constructed two simple raised beds, (hopefully correctly placed and orientated) and excavated a small hole, now plastic lined and water filled which will, without doubt, become a magnificent wildlife pond. 

 Some fascinating pond progress:

  

It’s a small thing, but wonderful because a patch of shimmering sky has suddenly appeared in the lawn and, when the light is right, is bounced up into the kitchen to dance high on the tops of the cabinets and ripple on the ceiling..Quite lovely.

 Planting the pond

This is not my first pond but the first I have tried to create with regard to native plants and wildlife. Luckily I found the extremely helpful Puddleplants who can provide wildlife friendly collections for native and ornamental ponds. So the pond is now started and after some excellent advice from Annette at Puddle, the first plants to go in are: 

Deep water plant: Fringe Lily,
Oxygenator: Starwort 
Marginals: Marsh marigold, Purple loosestrife, Yellow flag, Water mint, Forget me not, Bog bean, Brooklime, Cotton grass, Carex and Penny Royal.

I will add more as they become available, but (and this is doomed to fail) will try not to plant too much. It’s a problem because I tend to get over-excited about the possibilities and over-optimistic about the greenness of my fingers.
I am beginning to edge the pond with stones, have made two escape slopes for hedgehogs and small mammals, have an overhang to create a shade area and some old roof tiles and bits of wood waiting to be placed around the edge which will give cover for frogs etc.
I won’t be having any fish. Advice indicates they are not compatible with other wildlife, although I did like to see the brilliant orange flashes of my small goldfish in the previous pond who, for years, seemed to share their home companionably with frogs, newts and sticklebacks.

And more working bee drawings…

Working on the the garden, revising the rats nest of electrics in the roof and trying to get some heart into the ugly bungalow by opening up the chimney for a woodburner, seem to have caused a huge and disproportionate amount  of mess and chaos. Everything has been covered in plaster dust and mud and my work room has been piled up with “stuff” so artwork has had to take a back seat for a couple of weeks. But I am back to the working sketches now and to Bombus lapidarius, the Red Tailed or Stone, Bumble Bee.

I never get tired of watching this bee. Luckily for us they are very common. The queens are big and extremely beautiful, so very velvet black and so very flame red. They were the stars of my bee walks at Heligan. Every day for two weeks, at 2.00 pm,  perfectly on cue, the workers zoomed in and out of their nest. We would walk over to a patch of rather unpromising ground by a tree where there was a small hole in the earth. “Just watch” was all I had to say. The Oohhs, Ahhhs and delighted smiles were very rewarding.

They like to nest on the ground, under things, often at the base of walls or under sheds (yes…I am hopeful).. hence the name the Stone Bumble Bee. I have been looking out on BWARS for early sightings, one was possibly seen on Christmas Day but nothing reported since then.  Looking at the forecast for this week I hope they are still hunkered down.
I am still undecided about the flower. The possibilities are many because they forage from a wide range of plants.  Thoughts are maybe a scabious of some kind.

PS. Most fun and satisfying recent gardening activity: buying a cheap garden shredder to chop up the massive pile of mixed hedge loppings and then using them for mulch… How green are we?? …3 hrs of legal and productive destruction…highly recommended :)