Dear Readers, I would love to give you a whole new Wednesday Weed, but as it’s now only a week until my OU Biology/Environmental Science exam, I am recycling this one. Suffice it to say that my lavender is still going strong, and is on the verge of busting out, so I hope to be sitting on the wall with a cup of tea watching the bees by this time next week. And in the meantime, here’s my post on Lavender from (gulp) 2018. Where do the years go?

Readers, when we were trying to buy a house in East Finchley almost a decade ago, I sat on the wall outside the house that is now ours. Were we far enough from the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner not to be affected by the rowdiness that sometimes accompanies such establishments? How bad was the noise from the main road? As I sat there, I breathed in the scent from the lavender that had been planted by the current owners, and watched the bees hopping from flower to flower. I realised how lucky I was to be even considering living here, and also that the house was meant to be ours. I am sure that the smell of lavender will always mean this house to me, and will be tied up with the memories of my time here.

Today, those lavender plants have become a veritable field. In truth they’ve become a bit woody and overgrown, but for a few weeks every year they attract every pollinator for miles around. I sat on my wall with the camera this afternoon, and listened to the drowsy hum of the honeybees going about their business, just as I did a decade ago, and it still soothes me. I think of them taking the lavender-scented nectar back to the hives on the allotment a few blocks away, and it makes me smile to think of how delicious it will be.

Every year we take the shears to the lavender once it’s finished flowering, and the next year it comes back with more flowers than ever. I know there are lots of other varieties, but this seems to be the one that is the most robust in the sun-baked Mediterranean climate of my south-facing front yard. Every time I brush past the flowers they release that heady, resinous scent.

Most of the bees that come to visit are busy honeybees or bumblebees, but every so often we get a butterfly. Normally these are large or small cabbage whites, but today I spotted my first small tortoiseshell. These butterflies had a bad year last year – I don’t think I saw a single specimen, so it was great to see this one. They look so unobtrusive with their wings closed, but then they open them, and you get a brief glimpse of tangerine and sky blue.

Lavender is a member of the Lamiaceae or mint family, and can be found right across Europe, south west Asia and northern and eastern Africa. It has been taken to many other countries as a culinary herb, and as a source of essential oils. It has been found ‘in the wild’ in the UK since at least 1440 – it was mentioned in a manuscript poem by a horticulturalist called Jon Gardener ( which may have been a pseudonym, a case of someone being named after their occupation, or a fine case of nominative determinism). The plant now finds itself in the top thirty list of alien plants found in London and Berkshire, but not in Sutherland, where presumably it is too cold and wet. I suspect that its range will increase northwards as climate change warms up the country.

There is some discussion about how lavender got its name. Some believe that it came from the Latin word lavare, to wash, perhaps referring to the use of the essential oil in soap and for scenting both people and clothing. Others think that it comes from the Latin word livere, meaning ‘blue-ish’. Both seem feasible to me, and the derivation could well be a combination of the two, equally applicable, words.In Hebrew, the plant is called nard, and is mentioned in the Song of Solomon. In Roman times, lavender was sold for 100 denarii a pound, about the same as a month’s wages for a farm labourer.

Today, lavender the plant has given its name to lavender the colour, one of my favourites.

Something that divides people is the use of lavender as a flavouring. I am very fond of floral overtones in food, and a lemon and lavender cake is my idea of heaven. However, it’s easy to be heavy-handed and to end up with a dessert that tastes like soap, just as the over-use of rosewater can result in something that reminds me of a lady’s boudoir. Should you wish to have a bash, however, here is a recipe for lavender and lemon loaf cake.

Interestingly, although popular culture has it that the people of Provence have been showering every dish with lavender since time immemorial, the ingredient was not included in books about Provencal cookery at the turn of the 20th century. Lambs were  allowed to graze on lavender to flavour and tenderise their meat, but the inclusion of lavender in ‘Herbes de Provence’ was created in 1970 for the North American market. Thus are legends born.

The production of lavender oil for other purposes is big business: it’s used in everything from soap and shower-gel to fabric conditioner and cleaning products. There are two types of oil, one derived exclusively from the flowers and used in perfumery and aromatherapy, and lavender spike oil, derived from a different species of lavender, Lavandula latifolia, and used as a replacement for turpentine. The world’s biggest producer of lavender is not as you might expect Provence in France, but Bulgaria. There are also some lavender farms in southern England, including Mayfield Lavender in Surrey, a site that I stumbled upon during a walk a few years ago. What a feast for the senses it was!

As a medicinal ingredient, lavender is often used to enable sleep and to soothe anxiety (hence the use of lavender oil sachets and pillows filled with the flowers for those with insomnia). It was used in the First World War as an antiseptic for wounds and burns, and has long been used for tension headaches, and as a treatment for parasites. However, the oil is also an endocrine disrupter, and has been linked to breast development in young boys (prepubertal gynecomastia). It is also a strong ingredient which can irritate the skin if used at the wrong concentration. While I like the smell of the flowers, and the taste of the ingredient in food, I much prefer rose as a scent in my soap and lotions. I find lavender a little bit overwhelming.

On the other hand, Cleopatra was said to have seduced both Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony by wearing a perfume containing lavender, so if you are in the mood to subdue a dictator this might be just the plant. On St Luke’s Day (18th October), maidens would sip lavender tea and recite this poem:

“St Luke, St Luke, be kind to me,
In my dreams, let me my true love see.”

Furthermore, lavender was one of the ingredients of Four Thieves Vinegar, a concoction which was said to protect those who used it against the plague. The ‘Four Thieves’ bit comes after some burglars who were preying on the houses of those who had died of the disease were captured: they gave the recipe in exchange for clemency, saying that it had enabled them to go about their nefarious crimes without catching the plague themselves. There are many different recipes, but all include vinegar mixed with various herbs, such as sage, rosemary and lavender. As these plants have all been used to deter insect infestations, I wonder if bathing in the vinegar deterred the fleas that carried the plague? Often these stories have a tiny kernel of truth.

And here, for our poem of the week, is one by Paul Muldoon, an Irish poet who has won both the T.S Eliot and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This is the title poem from his 1987 collection ‘Meeting the British’.

Meeting the British

We met the British in the dead of winter.
The sky was lavender

and the snow lavender-blue.
I could hear, far below,

the sound of two streams coming together
(both were frozen over)

and, no less strange,
myself calling out in French

across that forest-
clearing. Neither General Jeffrey Amherst

nor Colonel Henry Bouquet
could stomach our willow-tobacco.

As for the unusual
scent when the Colonel shook out his hand-

kerchief: C’est la lavande,
une fleur mauve comme le ciel.

They gave us six fishhooks
and two blankets embroidered with smallpox.

Photo Credits

Photo One by © Copyright Christopher Hilton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Readers, when I was wandering (aka hobbling) down Bedford Road in East Finchley a few days ago, I spotted these lovely patches of self-seeded Verbena bonariensis happily growing from gaps in the pavement. They’re not the easiest plants to step over, or to avoid, but they made me very happy nonetheless – I can often trace the pavement ‘weeds’ to their points of origin, but it’s rarely so clear.

I think of ‘weeds’ as opportunistic plants, and nowhere is this clearer than here – these garden plants thrive in dry conditions and poor soil, and nowhere is better than  a south-facing pavement with a tiny bit of earth between the cracks. I wonder if it will ever become truly ‘wild’? In Stace and Crawley’s book ‘Alien Plants’, this verbena is described as ‘increasingly naturalised’, especially as it has become popular in ‘prairie plantings’ and council flowerbeds. I’ve also seen it planted in SUDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems), where beds of plants absorb run-off and excess floodwater: though this particular plant isn’t fond of damp conditions, it might be that a roadside mimics the combination of dry soil that is occasionally inundated. At any rate, Verbena bonariensis is definitely ‘flavour of the month’ at the moment. Let’s hope that the bees and butterflies appreciate it (when they appear).

What unusual plants have you seen growing ‘wild’? I  have really noticed the changing patterns of urban plants since I’ve been doing the blog (it started ten years ago), and I wonder if anybody else has?

And in the meantime, here’s my original Wednesday Weed about the plant, from 2018.

Dear Readers, what a strange plant this is, with its stiff stems and heads of tiny purple-pink flowers! I until a few years ago it was a relative rarity in London gardens, and I can see why – the flowerheads are small for the size of the plant, which can grow up to six feet tall. But then the other day I saw some planted with grasses and Japanese anemones, and I finally appreciated its delicate beauty. Plus, it is a great late summer plant for butterflies, and as so many people are trying to do their bit for wildlife these days it has grown in popularity. Finally, it is drought-tolerant, and we all need a bit of that in London, what with it being nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

The name ‘Verbena’ means ‘sacred bough’, but this refers to Verbena officinalis or Vervaine, a plant used for medicine and for sacred ritual from the Druids onwards and introduced to the UK in the Stone Age. You can see the family resemblance in the photo below, especially the stiff stems.

‘Bonariensis‘ means ‘from Buenos Aires’, indicating that the plant originated in South America. It has naturalised in the warmer parts of North America and is considered a noxious weed in some states.

In the US, the plant is known as ‘purpletop’ or ‘South American vervaine’. It seems strange to me that the plant doesn’t yet have a common name in the UK, considering how popular it’s become. In their book on Alien Plants, Clive Stace and Michael J. Crawley call it ‘Argentine Vervaine’, so maybe this will catch on. However, a new variety of the plant, which is smaller with larger flowers, is known as ‘Lollipop Verbena’ so maybe this is the name that will stick.

In ‘Alien Plants’, Verbena bonariensis is described as being one of the UK’s fastest spreading non-native plants. It certainly loves to self-seed and, as it gives height to plantings in supermarket car parks and municipal beds it’s easy to see where the spread is coming from. Plus you can grow it from seed, which saves lots of money, no small thing if you’re a cash-strapped council. I foresee fields of ‘purpletop’ in our future.

Medicinal uses for the plant seem to be few and far between, at least in Europe. One site describes it as useful for love potions. Another mentions how their dog seems to love eating it. Humans, however, do not appear to eat the plant in any form that I can find. I suspect that it might be useful as a dried flower, and Alys Fowler describes the blackened seed heads as ‘most arresting’. But if you have a patch of the garden in full sun, you might want to grow the plant just to see which insects turn up.

I always have a bit of a problem with what to plant for once my buddleia and lavender have finished, and I am thinking of getting a raised bed for my south-facing front garden, to replace the selection of pots that I currently have – even with daily watering the plants have suffered this year, and I think they might stand a better chance in deeper soil. I suspect that some Verbena bonariensis will definitely feature after the display of insects above, especially if I can grow it from seed. It’s good to have a gardening project to consider when I have so much else going on. It’s difficult to dwell on dark thoughts when leafing through a seed catalogue.

And so to a poem, and what a sock in the eye this one is, especially as we all pant in the grip of a heatwave that is longer than any I can remember.

‘Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry‘……

Anthropocene Pastoral by Catherine Pierce

In the beginning, the ending was beautiful.

Early spring everywhere, the trees furred

pink and white, lawns the sharp green

that meant new. The sky so blue it looked

manufactured. Robins. We’d heard

the cherry blossoms wouldn’t blossom

this year, but what was one epic blooming

when even the desert was an explosion

of verbena? When bobcats slinked through

primroses. When coyotes slept deep in orange

poppies. One New Year’s Day we woke

to daffodils, wisteria, onion grass wafting

through the open windows. Near the end,

we were eyeletted. We were cottoned.

We were sundressed and barefoot. At least

it’s starting gentle, we said. An absurd comfort,

we knew, a placebo. But we were built like that.

Built to say at least. Built to reach for the heat

of skin on skin even when we were already hot,

built to love the purpling desert in the twilight,

built to marvel over the pink bursting dogwoods,

to hold tight to every pleasure even as we

rocked together toward the graying, even as

we held each other, warmth to warmth,

and said sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry while petals

sifted softly to the ground all around us.

Photo Credits

Photo One by Andreas Rockstein at https://www.flickr.com/photos/74738817@N07/28519290812

Photo Two from https://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/verbena-bonariensis-lollipop-pbr/classid.2000017445/

Photo Three by By Dinkum [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verbena_bonariensis_with_a_bee.JPG

Photo Flour by Dave Merrett at https://www.flickr.com/photos/davehamster/3896579963

Photo Five by Dwight Sipler at https://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/272560745

Photo Six by By RedR [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

Photo Seven by  frank wouters (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Readers, I am gradually learning to be less agitated about the jungle-like state of my garden, and am becoming more accepting instead – this has been the lost summer, when all I’ve really been able to do is to watch and wonder at what pops up when nobody does anything about it. How about the rather elegant plant in the first photo, for a start – I suspect that it’s Canadian Fleabane, but won’t really know until it flowers. In its current state it could make a fine pot plant, but once it blooms it will be a rather raggedy, untidy member of the Asteraceae or daisy family.

And, someone warned me that once you’ve grown a Teasel you never will be without one, and so it’s proved. This one is making itself very at home in a pot that once held some Sicilian Honey Garlic bulbs. And in the pot next door there’s what I suspect is American Willowherb.

Then there’s the Greater Willowherb, which has been magnificent this year, though it’s grown rather taller than I expected, and in a lot of places where I technically didn’t want it. Oh well, all control is something of an illusion, as I’ve learned this year.

And I am absolutely delighted about what’s popped up in a random bucket. Unless I’m much mistaken, this is woody nightshade, or bittersweet – I thought I’d lost it from the garden, but clearly one of the berries has made itself at home. I loved it because it was buzz-pollinated by the bumblebees, and I miss the distinctive sound of the ‘buzz’ while I’m having my morning coffee.

And talking of bees, how about this little insect, nectaring away on my Sedum?  This is what’s known as a Base-banded Furrow Bee, from a genus called the Lasioglossum – in other parts of the world these bees are known as sweat bees, but they tend not to live up to their name in the UK. There are 34 species of Lasioglossum here, and they vary in size from tiny to the size of a honeybee – this bee was about half the size of a honeybee.  This genus can be very difficult to identify to species level without a microscope and a dead bee, so I shall simply admire this one as she goes about her business. Furrow bees are considered to be very underrated as pollinators – although many species are solitary bees they often nest in aggregations (collections of nest tunnels in the same area of usually sandy soil), and so they can often be seen visiting all kinds of crops.  Confusingly, some species of Furrow Bee are social, with a queen and worker bees. Every time I find a new insect in the garden, a whole new can of invertebrates opens up for investigation!

Dear Readers, you might remember that I’m growing a mini-meadow in a windowbox for the East Finchley Festival on Sunday. Largely, things are going pretty well – the selfheal and the rough hawkbit are both in flower, with yarrow and meadow vetchling not far behind. However, there’s something very interesting going on on the goatsbeard (I will be giving it a good wash before it’s put on the stall on on Sunday).

You can see that the ants have been hard at work, moving the black aphids around. The aphids have been producing barrel-loads of honeydew, you can see it caked on the leaves and forming a kind of sugar crust on some areas of the stem (above).

But wait, what is this?

This tiny blue and red insect is a jewel wasp (Chrysis ignita species). I only wish that my camera could have caught the true brilliance of this tiny creature, with its turquoise thorax and bright red abdomen. You would have thought it was made of molten metal.

 

Jewel wasps are actually cuckoo wasps – they lay their eggs in the nests of other insects, usually other wasps or mason bees. This is a dangerous way of carrying on, as you can imagine, so the wasp has a number of defences – it has a hollow stomach, which means that it can roll up into a tight ball if attacked by an angry bee, and it also has a sting, though this is not venomous, so it ‘stabs’ an attacker, but can’t poison it.

You can see the jewel wasp in flight bottom right of the photo.

At first I wondered if the wasp was planning on munching on the aphids, but after a while I realised that it was much more interested in the honeydew – the ants who were ‘farming’ the aphids didn’t like this, and would drive the wasp off whenever it tried to land. Eventually the wasp gave up and sat on a self-heal leaf for a bit. In the photo below you can make out that shiny red bottom.

What fascinates me is how a tiny collection of ten meadow plants can become an ecosystem in just a few weeks, and this was after less than twenty minutes observation. Who knows what else goes on? And I am full of questions – why is only the goatsbeard covered in aphids, and everything else looks fine? Are these the same ants that have recently put in an appearance on my living room floor? And what will happen after I’ve washed the aphids off? I shall keep you posted…