Jack Go To Bed At Noon
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl...
Love the new water feature VP .. and a bonus plant to set it off too !
ReplyDeleteI had volunteer annuals pop up between patio stones the last two years .. I just let them be .. didn't have the heart to "clean my bricks ?" haha
I Love volunteers. It's one of the joys of gardening. It really looks sweet there.
ReplyDeleteIt flooded our pond in the back garden too... Had to rush out and check there were no fish swimming around in in the lawn! lol ;)
ReplyDeleteWe always call our flood in the garden, which appears after heavy rain, our other water feature. Another job which needs sorting. x
ReplyDeleteJoy and jane marie - hi! I love the north American term 'volunteer', sounds much better than 'weed'! I get plenty of 'volunteer' spuds up at the allotment!
ReplyDeletePaul & Melanie - oh no not again for you guys. That must be about the 3rd time in less than a year?
Louise - I'm not sure what else we can do to sort the problem. We've got drainage installed already. Luckily the stream hasn't done much damage (touch wood) so far as we're on quite a severe slope.