Tag Archives: grape hyacinth

365 Frankendael day 314

image

Not edible violets but edible  Campanula, beneath a bike rack.

image

Grape hyacinths, just in flower.

image

Edible flowers (and later fruit) of  Japonica / Japanese Quince.

image

Wormwood – the first time I’ve seen it outside of my street!

image

Viola, edible and medicinal just like their wild sisters the Violets.

Advertisement

365 Frankendael day 301

Here are a few of the plants, growing in my tree pit today:

image

This large leaved plant was a gift as a seed, from Elodie. I can’t transfer the name but it’s a fruiting plant, from Greece, I think. I must check, especially as I notice that birds have moved one of the original seeds to a neighbour’s geveltuin.

image

This is a Curry plant, looking and smelling a little like last week’s curry, rather than a fresh tikka masala, but come late sporting this will be a culinary herb to be reckoned with! I love a pinch of the leaves in a salad our cooked into many different dishes. I find the scent fragrant and mildly spicy. Quite delicious and very easy to grow and take cuttings from.

image

And lastly today, several easy to multiply bunches of Grape hyacinth, developing their floppy, messy foliage, in preparation for the unique blue flower spikes. I didn’t realise until lately that this popular little plant has some historical uses. None are very interesting to me these days, especially as the bulb is poisonous. But the fact that the flowers are nectar rich and very useful to bees, is interesting.

You’ll also see easy to grow Ivy, in the photo and a strange plastic tube which I’m told, is there to aerate the soil around the young tree roots.