Blowing in the wind

Well, we are having some extremes of weather for June!  Wet and windy are not always the best combinations for cut flowers grown au naturel.  I have to put my trust in Mother Nature and civil engineering inspired staking for the taller and more fragile plants.  I use a combination of staking individual plants and whole rows at a time using bean support netting.  Discovering the most appropriate staking method for different flowers is a work in progress for me. Last year a little laziness took me over regarding the staking of plants.  Well, actually, I think it was more to do with too many things to do at once so I had to prioritise and mistakenly didn’t see staking as a priority last year.  The consequences were predictable and I lost whole rows of gorgeous flowers to wind and rain. This year was to be so different and thankfully there has not, as yet, been too many catastrophic casualties of the wind in the cutting garden. When I say casualties it infers negativity but in reality what I mean is I have to harvest the damaged flowers and I get more for myself... poor me, how I suffer for my garden!

The named ‘casualties’ of the wind so far in the garden have been, the tall thin corncockle, woad seed heads and an en masse sway of an 11 metre length of cornflowers.  The latter is shown below and provides me with yet another learning curve of using far more substantial supports than just bamboo canes for next year.  The whole weighty row of cornflowers has a 30 degree sway and I can almost imagine them saying, “Wahey”, as they all moved as one in last week’s wind.

Woad is well known for it’s use as a natural dye where the leaves are processed to provide a blue colour just like indigo.  I grow woad for it’s gorgeous lime green regimented seed heads, they look like rows of hanging bats on a branch. When left on the plant the seeds will turn a macabre black colour before they go forth and seed everywhere! 

The woad looks like a mini tree in this bottle.

Lovely close ups of the seedheads.

Fingers crossed now for only gentle winds for the remainder of the growing season.