Thursday, 6 September 2012

Flowers of Yorkshire (1)






The rose garden at Castle Howard



More of the rose garden at Castle Howard


... and even more of the rose garden at Castle Howard! For me that was the best bit. All these little divisions like garden 'rooms'. You could tipt about, find someone, lose them, find them. So colourful, so fragrant, so sensuous

These blue ones are neither wild nor garden flowers, well so we thought. They looked like a crop. Some other walkers asked if we knew what they were but we didn't. They aren't linseed. I wondered about chicory.  When we have been in mediterranean countries we have noticed wayside flowers just like them in quite arid conditions. This could be a cultivated version. It was a very well=drained soil area in the wolds, just near Thixendale. Maybe somebody can solve the mystery.
....Actually I've just googled chicory and that's what they are!

Must say, feeling a bit down today. Have lost a friend to cancer. Funeral this afternoon. Such a fit, healthy person. The type to get up one morning, go and climb a mountain and get home for lunch, as if he had just popped to the shops, and go off orienteering in the afternoon. He only had a few weeks from being diagnosed to being gone. You just never know, do you?


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4 comments:

  1. Helsie6 September 2012 at 10:24

    so sorry to hear of your loss.
    I think we get to an age where we begin to hear lots of these untimely deaths. The late 40s, 50s and 60s seem to be dangerous years. That why we must "sieze the day" which in my case means book flights overseas! You never know what's around the corner.
    Lovely pictures of Castle Howard. I love the gardens in these places. Did they have a walled garden? I especially love those... and I love the landscaping done by Capability Brown too. Beautiful vistas!
    I was going to say the crop was linseed just by the colour but could not see the flowers much. Chickory ...? never seen either of them growing here. I wonder if we produce them? We've seen a very pretty couple of fields of linseed in full flower while on our last trip.
    I'm really enjoying your posts and you are setting a grand pace at the moment. Not a lot of inspiration here though. I'll probably start moaning about the heat soon - 30 tomorrow ! We've had a lovely cold winter (for us ) this year and we've even been able to weara scarf but only for the look,it hasn't been cold enough to need one.
    Cheers

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  2. Foody6 September 2012 at 10:37

    The rose garden was within a big walled garden with espalier fruit trees on the walls, colourful herbaceous beds etc etc. All you would expect. I'm not sure if Capability B did anything here. You know more than I do! We had a guidebook but I just gazed. Thought I would read it later but I didn't. Never do.
    Thanks for the comments but when I run out of holiday things I fear I may dry up again!
    Chicory - a salad veg, also used as coffee substitute and as animal fodder. I had never seen it growing but we don't see many arable crops unless we go away a distance.

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  3. Bernard6 September 2012 at 10:47

    We have loads of the blue flowers here. The seeds blow all along the roadsides. It is from Linseed which seems to be popular with farmers at the moment. There is a bit on this post of mine -
    http://monkey-organ.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/birch-and-elder-still-follow-track.html
    Some call it Flax. According to the dictionary linseed is another name for flax.
    I didn't know that. :)

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  4. Foody7 September 2012 at 11:03

    I remember seeing linseed/flax fields in Norfolk. They really looked beautiful.
    I sometimes plant annual linum in our garden. It's related of course.
    Hey, linoleum. Is that made from linseed? oleum is oil in Latin. Hmm...another post in the making, perhaps.
    Thanks for the reminder of your 2009 post. I must re-visit and I must look at your oragn posts form the other day. I was forgetting.

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