A package of seeds for the allotment has arrived in the post courtesy of a £20 voucher my brother gave me to place an order with King Seeds/Suffolk Herbs. I ordered five packets of various 'green manures' i.e. fast growing plants that enhance the soil. 'Living mulch' might be another way of putting it as they quickly cover bare ground, suppress weeds and prevent erosion.  Their root systems improve soil structure and some act as nitrogen fixers. The White and Crimson Clovers for example have long been part of the crop rotation cycle in agriculture.

 The usual advice is to dig in green manures before they flower but left to flower they are great for pollinating insects. The Phacelia for instance produces a lovely haze of blue flowers and features in every list of the best bee plants.

 Some green manures are simply crops we are not in the habit of eating like the Buckwheat which is also the source of Buckwheat Flour. I bought winter hardy Field Beans to sow later in the year, they are a relative of the Broad Bean and edible.

  I also bought seed for some other flowery edibles- Pot Marigold (bright orange flowers), Wild Rocket (bright yellow flowers), Chicory (sky blue flowers) and two kinds of Radish. If you don't get round to picking all your Radishes they put on an airy display of small white flowers in late summer.

 Today I scattered some of the Radish seed among the emerging leaves of Allium sphaerocephalon. This bulbous Allium is usually grown as an ornamental for tall stems topped by a round head of pink/purple flowers but is edible by most accounts though I haven't tried it yet. I think the Radish will function as a simple form of intercropping without smothering the Alliums.

 I sowed "18 day Radishes" so I will write an entry in 18 days or thereabouts to say if they have lived up to that description!

 

 

 Along with Hawthornes [see last entry] apple blossom is another delight of the season.

 

 Hawthornes are sometimes called the May Tree but the one in the garden has bloomed a week early. When I take a train ride through the countryside at this time of year I see them dotted all over the landscape. The Common Hawthorne was a standard component of stock proof hedges. A good many that were planted as shrubs for this reason have survived the decline of our hedgerows by growing into trees.

 

 I'm delighted to see several Smyrnium perfoliatum have sprung up in the garden. I tried to introduce this beautiful woodlander several years ago and thought I'd failed. My first attempt was to plant three I purchased in pots but they didn't flower and died. 

 Then I bought one in flower that looked like it was just past its best and about to go to seed. I'd read somewhere that the seed has to be absolutely fresh for propagation purposes and the best bet is to let them self-seed. Nothing came of it- or so I thought. Smyrnium perfoliatum is often described as biennial but more accurately it's a triennial i.e. three year growth cycle. Some seed must have germinated.

 Thinking about it I saw a couple coming through last year which didn't amount to anything but that must have been the second year's growth. According to one source S. perfoliatum grows above ground for about six weeks each year till the year it's ready to bloom. Another source says it can be mistaken for Ground Elder when it first appears. About five or six weeks ago I was puzzled to see what looked like Ground Elder and wondered how it got there.

 So it came as a delightful surprise to have three [update: four] very healthy looking specimens put in an appearance. The native range of S. perfoliatum is southern Europe heading east but clearly it can do well in UK conditions albeit a bit tricky to establish. The flowers and upper leaves are of an exquisite hue that falls somewhere between lime green and lemon yellow. They become luminous when the sun is on them. 

 

 Various species in the Deadnettle (Lamium) family have clam-like flowers which bumblebees shoulder open to get at the nectar. For example L. galeobdolon subsp. montanum as seen above.

 

 I'm finding Erythronium 'Pagoda' a reliable bulb for semi-shady woodland planting. It's an American relative of the European Dog's Tooth Violet (E. dens-canis), said to be a hybrid E. tuolumnense x californicum. 

 I saw something very similar dotted all over a damp meadow near Crater Lake, Oregon a few years ago though that would have been a straight species wildflower. A couple of dozen species are to be found in the States which is most of the genus.

 Actually I never really gave much thought to why it's called 'Pagoda' but looking at these blooms there is indeed a pagoda-like quality. 

 

 Comfrey, part four. White Comfrey (Symphytum orientale) is perhaps the most elegant of the Comfreys. A very useful plant for the garden because it copes well with shade and dry soil. It hails from Turkey, the Caucasus and West Russia. It self-seeds freely. I see a lot of it growing wild in Hertfordshire and it seems to be becoming more frequent in London.

All the Comfreys are important bee plants and White Comfrey is no exception.

 I have deliberately planted White Comfrey among self-seeded Green Alkanet (Pentalgottis sempervirens), another great plant for bees. Both are of the Boraginaceae family. The leaves look rather similar and the mass of blue and white flowers is very attractive. I once saw a long border at Kew Gardens which consisted entirely of this combination and the effect was stunning.

 

 Ipheion uniflorum is sometimes called Spring Starflower. This humble little bulb isn't much used though it's widely available in autumn. It seems to like cascading over things, perhaps that is its habit in its native range of Argentina and Uruguay?

The flowers vary from pure white to shades flushed with blue.

 

 I achieved the cascading effect (by accident it has to be said) when I planted a handful of bulbs in an old oil drum. Here I. uniflorum tumbles out of a mass of self seeded Herb Robert. The taller stems are Camassia leichtlinii coming into flower. 

 

  A nice surprise. Vinca difformis is what I thought I was planting, a relative of Greater and Lesser Periwinkle. The gardeners at the South London Botanical Institute gave me a few rooting stems last year. And sure enough the characteristic white flowers have appeared this spring.

 Unexpectedly there are some purple flowers among them which are another species of Periwinkle. A stem of Vinca major var. oxyloba must have got mixed up with the difformis. A happy accident- the combination of the two is delightful.

 

 Comfrey, part three. Symphytum 'Hidcote' is a stoloniferous spreader and a clumper. 'Hidcote' is a reference to the garden at Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire I believe, presumably where this variety originated or was first identified. It's described as the cross between three species of Comfrey: Symphytum officinale x asperum x grandiflorum.

 I planted both 'Hidcote Pink' and 'Hidcote Blue' but the form with a wash of pale blue on the white flowers seems to have become dominant.

 

 

 Grape Hyacinth (Muscari armenaicum) adds a blue note to the garden in spring. The bulbs are so cheap when purchased in autumn that you might as well plant loads of them in a suitably sunny spot. I'm pleased to see that the ones in the front garden seem to be seeding over the low wall into the cracks between the paving stones...

 

 I was struck by this display of Wood Spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae) in a flower bed in central London. The typical municipal flower bed is a drab mish mash and I've often thought that planting a spreading species around a single tree or shrub would be a better option. Formal mixed beds are fine if given a lot of attention but just look scrappy when neglected.

 So I was pleased to see an actual working example of my theory. I am reminded of the old adage: less is more. 

 

 Comfrey, part two. Symphytum grandiflorum is a low growing, groundcovering Comfrey like S. ibericum. In fact it's a moot point whether they are two different species or variations of the same species. When described as ibericum white flowers seem to be the norm whereas grandiflorum is generally associated with creamy yellow flowers. In other respects they seem to my eye to be identical.

 Their Latin nomenclature may vary but they go by the same common names, both being referred to as Dwarf Comfrey and/or Creeping Comfrey. Their native range is the Caucasus region and they are found in the UK as garden plants or garden escapes.

 

 Comfrey, part one. I'll write about various Comfreys as and when I see them coming into flower. Above is Symphytum ibericum on the allotment. Beth Chatto described S. ibericum as "impenetrable weed-cover" and Martin Crawford calls it a "fantastic ground cover". 

 I planted a few root cuttings taken from a patch on a nearby allotment and within a year or two it has fulfilled those criteria.

 

  I associate Tulips with rather tame floral displays in parks and gardens so they don't really feature in my wild gardening and botanical musings. Then again I imagine their natural habitat -the steppes and mountains of Kazakhstan- is altogether different!

 There is however one species which grows wild in the UK: Tulipa sylvestris. Even so it is probably an introduction that has naturalised from Eurasian and/or North African origins. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland notes that T. sylvestris was in cultivation in Britain by 1596 and recorded in the wild by 1790.

 In my experience it doesn't prosper when planted in London clay and part shade (despite the epithet sylvestris). It has fared better in a sunny spot on the allotment in Hertfordshire (as seen above) where the soil is thin and calcareous. 

 

 Some spring flowers in the garden. Summer Snowflakes (Leucojum aestivum) bloom in spring despite the name.

 

 Oxlips (Primula elatior) and Primroses (Primula vulgaris).

 

 Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla ).