Tag Archives: wild flowers

I’ve never been in Cyprus in May or June before so this year is a new experience for me. Last weekend my wife and I went over to stay in Ayia Napa for a few days and she kindly drove. This gave me the chance to look around at the countryside, gradually dessicating in the strengthening summer sun but what amazed me was the beautiful sight of the Oleander bushes planted by the Cypriot transport authorities in the central reservation of the motorways.

I’d tried growing an Oleander at home in the UK with no success at all so to see the magnificent display here was breath-taking. It made me think of them as the Cypriot equivalent of the UK’s rhododendron displays.

Now I wondered whether I could do a display of Oleander in the house. I chose a selection of branches from a white and pink Oleander, being careful to wash my hands afterwards as the sap is extremely poisonous. The result was stunning and lasted nearly two weeks. The benefit with Oleander as a cut flower is that it has its own framing greenery, you can just put it in a vase and off you go. Being a semi-hardwood stem, you’ll need to break up the ends first with something heavy but then afterwards you’ll be rewarded with a beautiful display.

I was completely knocked out of the water though by a much simpler and elegant arrangement from my wife who simply took some wasted blooms and put them in a white china cup – so much for the years of study…..!!

if you haven’t got access to any Oleander, you can buy plants cheaply from florists and garden centres such as Cosmea Gardens. Don’t take too much off the plant in the first year though – you don’t want to ruin it!

I recently visited an attraction called ‘World of Flowers’ in Devon, near where I used to live. They’d begun their quest about ten years ago carving huge flower beds out of the hillside in the shape of the countries of the world. Then, a few years later, rather than rely on just the flowerbeds for the country, they cut out beds for the seas and oceans and planted them with gentians for the spring seas, dwarf ceanothus for the early summer and lobelia for the late summer and autumn. On a sunny day, the view from the other side of the valley was spectacular and in many ways it was like a floral version of the chalk designs ancient man used to carve into hillsides. On this occasion I was surprised to see that they had built a huge domed greenhouse over another plot of land and had planted the countries with their national flowers. Many weren’t yet in flower and many had finished flowering but it was an education travelling across this temperate ‘globe’ identifying and marvelling at the ideas they had used. The head gardener there said that trying to keep all the flowers from the different climate zones happy was a mammoth task but with the help of localised cooling machines and humidifiers they managed a semblance of the natural conditions. I hurried to the area of Cyprus on the ‘map’ and found to my delight that they had what had recently been declared the island’s national flower – the Cyclamen.

Summer looks like a distant dream at the moment and in the UK we seem to be stuck in perpetual spring. Whilst that means cool days and cold nights it has brought about the longest lasting spring flower display in decades. It’s now mid May and I still have daffodils in bloom in my garden but the special gift given to us by nature this spring are the bountiful glades of Bluebells.

Voted Britain’s most popular wild flower in a Plantlife poll, the UK is the international stronghold for the native Bluebell. In fact we have between 25% and 50% of the world’s population! But the native bluebell is under threat from foreign invaders, the Spanish Bluebell. Not since the time of the Armada has Britain faced such a threat to sovereignty from the Iberian peninsula.

Native bluebells are a protected species as to trample or damage the plants leads to their death. To feed our fascination for bringing the wild into our gardens we have imported and planted the Spanish variety with the added benefit that they have larger blooms. However, cross breeding with the wild bluebell is producing a hybrid that threatens the existence of the indigenous variety.

How it will end no one knows but The Natural History Museum is doing all it can to help preserve the British Bluebell.

In Cyprus, as in the UK, Bluebell corms are available in garden centres and bowls of them in flower are available from florists such as Cosmea Gardens. Once they have finished flowering, keep them cool and moist but please don’t dispose of them in the wild as this will help to wipe out the natural Bluebells. In the next post, I’ll show you a very simple arrangement you can make with Bluebells that will brighten any windowsill or shelf. And don’t worry, I won’t be using wild ones!!

Yes I know it’s been a while since my last blog but, like many of you, I was caught up in the ‘fall out’ from the Icelandic volcano.

I was one of the lucky ones, instead of being stranded in the UK, unable to go on holiday, guess what happened to me? Yes, whether it be God or good fortune, I was already in Cyprus when the volcano erupted and was forced to spend an extra week on the island. I can hear you all sympathising with me. It was particularly good in that Cyprus was enjoying some of its best April weather for years with the temperature hitting 30 celsius one day!

So, dedicated as I am to writing this blog, I worried over what I could do. I hadn’t taken my laptop with me and we were miles from the nearest internet café so instead I decided to gather some experiences for future posts. In our first week we’d noticed that there was to be a flower festival in Ayia Kyriaki in Paphos the following week but were disappointed to think we would have returned to the UK before the event took place. Events being as they were, we were still on the island for the festival and in future posts I want to share with you some of the amazing arrangements and the tips I received from the arrangers on bringing out the best in your flowers. We also took another trip out towards Akamas via Sea Caves to see how the wild flowers had changed. The fields were awash with colour, yellows from wild daisies, mauve from stachys and crimson from the poppies, coupled with the birdsong, calls from the cicadas and scuttling of lizards, it was nature at its best. The signs were already there though of a hot summer to come. Wild oats were ripening to a pale straw colour and the fields were turning from green to brown. Sadly I’m now back in the UK but looking forward to sharing more of my experiences with you over the coming weeks.