flowers

FUCHSIAS ARE MY FAVOURITE

June 21, 2023 by infomatique

BOTANIC GARDENS ON THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR

Fuchsias are much-loved for their hanging, bell-shaped, bi-coloured flowers that look like colourful, dancing skirts. The flowers last all summer long and there are thousands of varieties available, in shades of white, candy pink, magenta, purple and red. Some varieties have golden or variegated foliage, or purple or red-tinged leaves, too.

I PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN AND HERE IT IS

June 21, 2023 by infomatique

THE BOTANIC GARDENS 21 JUNE 2023

I highly recommend the spectacular circular rose garden at the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin.

Of the over 150 species of rose, the Chinese Rosa chinensis has contributed most to today’s garden roses; it has been bred into garden varieties for about 1,000 years in China, and over 200 in Europe. It is believed that roses were grown in many of the early civilisations in temperate latitudes from at least 5000 years ago. They are known to have been grown in ancient Babylon. Paintings of roses have been discovered in Egyptian pyramid tombs from the 14th century BC. Records exist of them being grown in Chinese gardens and Greek gardens from at least 500 BC. Many of the original plant breeders used roses as a starting material as it is a quick way to obtain results.

FLOWERS IN ALL THEIR GLORY 28 APRIL 2023

April 28, 2023 by infomatique

I USED A SONY FX-30 CAMERA

Flowers have long been appreciated by humans for their beauty and pleasant scents, and also hold cultural significance as religious, ritual, or symbolic objects, or sources of medicine and food.

Most flowering plants depend on animals, such as bees, moths, and butterflies, to transfer their pollen between different flowers, and have evolved to attract these pollinators by various strategies, including brightly colored, conspicuous petals, attractive scents, and the production of nectar, a food source for pollinators. In this way, many flowering plants have co-evolved with pollinators be mutually dependent on services they provide to one another—in the plant’s case, a means of reproduction; in the pollinator’s case, a source of food.

THE DAFFODILS HAVE ALREADY ARRIVED

February 10, 2023 by infomatique

IVEAGH GARDENS DUBLIN

Daffodils are naturally suited to the growing conditions in Ireland. These hardy, perennial bulbs, whose preferred habitat is deciduous woodland, flower in early Spring before leaves form on the trees.

Wild daffodils are native woodland plants in much of western Europe, including England and Wales but it is claimed that they are not native to Ireland which is surprising to me because when I lived in a remote area near Muff in Donegal there were three of four fields near our house which were full of “wild daffodils” every March. Our nearest neighbour was about a mile away and there were no gardens nearby.

The true wild daffodil is small with a trumpet that is darker yellow than the surrounding petals. However, most if not all of the daffodils flowering in the wild in Ireland at present are garden escapees. They survive well in the wild because they protect themselves from grazing animals by containing an alkaloid poison called lycorine. The highest concentration is in the bulbs but it’s also present in the foliage and flowers. Lycorine is also poisonous to humans and there are recorded cases of illness and even death, usually caused when people mistake the bulb for an onion.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (also commonly known as “Daffodils”) is a lyric poem by William Wordsworth. It is one of his most popular, and was inspired by a forest encounter on 15 April 1802 between he, his younger sister Dorothy and a “long belt” of daffodils. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807 in Poems, in Two Volumes, and as a revision in 1815.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.