Meet gorgeous Lady Lennox - believed lost for 110 years and now confirmed found by the Fruit ID committee! Local pomologist Denis Smith discovered it growing at Burghley and I slowly managed to unravel its provenance. Absolutely thrilled our submission has been successful.
A very welcome step by
@OfficeforEP
to launch investigation into
@DefraGovUK
's authorisation of
#neonics
during previous Govt
Even better is the very clear
@UKLabour
manifesto promise (restated by a spokesperson today) to ban them, once and for all!
The Holly King's last day in power today. According to Celtic lore, at Winter Solstice (late this year) he is ousted by the Oak King, who reigns until the Summer Solstice.
On International Women's Day, appreciation for the countless generations of women who have tended the soil, bringing produce to the table and beauty to the world.
Gathering forced rhubarb for the spring markets in West Yorkshire's 'golden triangle', 1940s.
The triangle is the centre of the world for rhubarb, bordered by Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford. In 2010 Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb was awarded Protected Designation of Origin status.
May I introduce you to Hotchkin Pippin, our second rediscovered apple - confirmed this week by the Fruit ID panel! Last recorded in Herts in 1883, a trail of clues led to its 1800 origin in a Rutland hedge. It's not as pretty as Lady Lennox but crops heavily on iron-ore soils.
Gilbert White of Selborne in his garden with his beloved tortoise, Timothy. White began his journal, the Garden Kalendar, in 1751. The engraving is one of my favourites by the wonderful Eric Ravilious (London, Nonsuch Press, 1938).
Eliot Hodgkin, 'May', from 'The Months', 1951. The first broad bean, strawberry and cherry, as well as flowers I always associate with May - apple blossom, hawthorn and lily-of-the-valley.
'Lady Derby Tulips', Eliot Hodgkin, 1948. Hodgkin's painting brings home how very many exquisite flowers we have lost - I cannot find a single supplier of Lady Derby tulip bulbs.
I love this 1770 portrait of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown by Richard Cosway. Something about the lack of formality without his wig, his direct gaze and the kindliness of his face.
Eliot Hodgkin, 'August', from 'The Months', 1950. An homage to Lammas, with the emphasis shifting from flowers to produce. I love the stem of lords and ladies and the surprising addition of sorrel, complete with insect-munched leaves.
Clement Attlee feeding the chickens with his daughters in the family's garden at Stanmore, Middx. This "dull, managerial lawyer" became one of the greatest PMs our country has ever known, rebuilding Britain from the wreckage and trauma of WWII and creating the NHS.
#hopeatlast
"A well-earned break". Garden labouring was backbreaking, pitifully paid and insecure. A survey of Rutland in 1842 revealed average life expectancy among agricultural and garden labourers was only 38. Professional gardeners fared much better, many living into their 70s or 80s.
Another exquisite 1640 plate from Nuremberg apothecary and botanist Basilius Besler, whose work was equally esteemed in Britain. This shows images of forking larkspur, also known as rocket larkspur or field larkspur.
On Local Elections Day, here's Clement Attlee, the Labour PM whose government created the NHS. Photographed in 1945 at his home in Stanmore, Attlee hated pretentiousness, did all his own gardening and tended to the family's pet goat, Mary.
Etheldreda Laing (1872-1960) was a gifted amateur photographer, renowned for her images of daily life at the family home, Bury Knowle House, in Oxford. Here is her 16 year old daughter Janet among the garden hollyhocks in 1914.
Flowers of Waste Places, plate from A R Horwood's 'A New British Flora', illustrated by J N Fitch. Published in 1919 by The Gresham Publishing Co Ltd, Covent Garden.
'The Auricula in its Natural Habitat' - colour plate from Samuel Curtis's 1820 publication 'The Beauties of Flora'. The artist was probably Clara Maria Pope (1767-1838), whose work Curtis admired for its beauty and accuracy.
'The Apple Tribe' from Elizabeth Twining's 1868 'Illustrations of the Natural Order of Plants'.
Elizabeth (1805-1889) was born into the Twinings tea merchant family. A philanthropist and champion of social reform, she also advocated for botany to be taught in schools.
A trip to 17th century Nuremberg, where Basilus Besler was painting the peonies and borage in the Bishop's garden. This garden was where the bishop could be 'closer to heaven' and celebrate the diversity of God's creation.
Digging for Victory. Gardener working in the moat at the Tower of London during WWII.
The Duke of Wellington had had the moat drained in the 1840s because of the stench. During peacetime it was used for grazing livestock, who kept the grass nicely trimmed.
Plate from British Wild Flowers, William Smith, London, 1846. Bilberry, cranberry, round-headed rampion, spreading bellflower, common sheepsbit, sheep's scabious, lobelia, fuller's teasel, devil's bit scabious.
Bunching Scilly Whites, St Mary's, 1900. The narcissi were prepared in large sheds, the men doing the trimming and boxing, the women the bunching. Growing spring flowers was the largest industry on the Scillies until tourism eventually overtook it.
A rare detour across the pond today, to Maldon, Massachusetts in 1891, where the town's ancient Dexter Elm was being decimated by the Gypsy moth caterpillar. A gang of 10 men was employed to destroy its eggs and by 1896 the infestation had been cleared. The tree stood until 1945.
Do you remember growing hyacinths in glass vases as a child? I found one of the vases in an old compost heap a while back and need to try it out again. The fashion stretched back at least to the Victorians, as shown here in Edward Prentis's 1840 'Morning Devotions'.
Eliot Hodgkin, 'March', from 'The Months', 1951.
Lovely to see he's included the pasque flower, symbol of Easter, which still grows wild in my locality on the rare limestone grasslands of Barnack's Hills and Holes.
'Madonna Lilies in a Garden', by Sussex artist Walter Crane (1845-1915). Crane was a prolific illustrator of children's books, many featuring garden scenes.
Plants can be a personal lifeline to the past. My maternal grandmother died very young, and at 5 my mum was sent off to live with distant relatives. She always remembered the bright coral buds on the rose growing in her early childhood garden, and years later identified it ...1/2
Thalia, probably my very favourite daffodil. Named after the Greek muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, it was introduced in 1916 by M van Waveren & Sons of the Netherlands. Photographer unknown.
On a beautiful weekend, when the hawthorn blossom is at its peak, here's Stanley Spencer's 'The May Tree', painted in 1932. Doesn't this just encapsulate Spring?
Varieties of the common daisy (bellis perennis) from 1641 by the Swiss-born engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder. The lower middle one was known as 'hen and chickens' in England and widely grown in gardens.
On the cusp of a new year, a joyful thought from Mirabel Osler "There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."
Another of Etheldreda Laing's wonderful Edwardian photographs of her daughters in their garden at Bury Knowle House, Oxford. Here is 7 year old Iris among the agapanthus pots in 1910.
Another gorgeous summery piece from contemporary Crouch End artist Anne-Marie Butlin to brighten up a wet day. 'Cornflower Meadow' painted in Cambridge Botanic Gardens.
Rhubarb 'Prince Albert', introduced in 1840 by Joseph Myatt of Deptford in the London borough of Lewisham, three years after his better known variety 'Victoria'. Photographer unknown.
My favourite old Haws watering can, given to me by a kindly neighbour who had become too infirm to garden. I love the twisted wire - it's the little things. 😀
Agrostemma githago, the common corncockle, a botanical illustration from the 1890s, when summer wheat fields were full of this pretty member of the carnation family.
'The Greenhouse', Charles Ginner (1878-1952). Ginner grew up in Cannes but moved to London in 1910. For forty years he captured English garden and street scenes.
Celebrating my Aunt Audrey, whose birthday would have been today. She was a Land Girl in WWII and the most extraordinary rose-grower. She's pictured here on leave in 1944 at my grandparents' home in Norwich.
Sunday in the garden, early 1930s, photographer unknown. The introduction of the canvas deck chair, originally olive green in colour, but later more commonly of brightly coloured stripes, is credited to a late 19th c British inventor by the name of Atkins.
May Flowering Irises No 2 (1935), Sir Cedric Morris (1889-1982). The self-taught artist and horticulturalist was the only person of his generation to be recognised as both a painter and a plantsman. He raised numerous irises in his garden at Benton End, near Hadleigh in Suffolk.
Eliot Hodgkin, 'July', from 'The Months', 1950. The globe artichoke would have been quite exotic. Cottage garden favourites and soft fruits sit alongside fashionable begonia and a tendril of deadly nightshade.
During the late 19th century the gloxinia was one of Britain's favourite house-plants and numerous varieties were bred here and on the Continent. This is 'Ami Chibaut' from 1875.
Home after a wonderful week in North Norfolk, my bedroom window opening onto a field of cowslips and the lanes all afroth with hawthorn and cow parsley. Tall irises are unfurling in the cottage gardens, reminding me of my beloved grandfather who grew them at his home in Norwich.
Eliot Hodgkin, 'June', from 'The Months', 1950. That gorgeous poppy, what I suspect is rosa 'Mermaid', scented pinks and philadelphus, and the first summer fruits and veg.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. "Margaret Willes unearths lush gardens nurtured outside workers’ cottages and horticultural miracles performed in blackened yards, and reveals the ingenious methods employed by determined workers to make their drab surroundings bloom."
Three double aquilegias from Basilius Besler's 'Hortus Eystettensis', published in Eichstatt in 1613. Copies of the exquisite German and Dutch florilegia were highly sought-after by wealthy British gardeners.
Surely one of the prettiest of tulips, the peony-flowered Angelique is another Dutch introduction, raised in 1959 by D W Lefeber. Photographer unknown.
Three early 19th century pansies - 'La Superbe', 'Argo' and 'Grand Duke of Russia' - all lost for probably a hundred years. Engraved by Alfred Adlard of 30 Dorset Street, London for 'The Florist's Journal' of 1840.
'The Early Green Hairy Gooseberry', engraved by S Watts (fl 1820-45) after an original by Augusta Withers (c.1791-1876) for The Pomological Magazine, London, 1828, Plate 22.
'Yew, detail', Eliot Hodgkin, 1954.
Yew is the longest-lived of our native trees, with some specimens pre-dating the Norman Conquest.
The yew was considered sacred and a cluster often signifies the remains of an ancient church or chapel.
'Three Walnuts', Eliot Hodgkin, 1963.
You might still find the odd walnut tree in old orchards and market gardens - the nuts fetched a good price from the 'Walnut Man', who called round in November ready for the Christmas markets.
Rev Samuel Reynolds Hole (1819-1904) was one of the leading Victorian experts on roses. He grew 5,000 rose trees at his home in Caunton, Notts and organised the first National Rose Show in July 1858. Hole later became Bishop of Rochester.