THIS WEEK AT GLEBE COTTAGE
The latest from Carol's beautiful cottage garden... plus her diary for the week!
Camassias are stealing the spring show now as they illuminate the garden with their charm
Just now, the garden has begun to sparkle – not that we have had much sunshine to light it up. Despite the lack of daffodils, which for some mysterious reason just haven’t done well this year, tulips in their pots are showing colour and beginning to come into their own. The most outstanding so far is ‘Golden Apeldoorn’, a Darwin hybrid with strong stems and egg-shaped, pure yellow flowers. Instead of ordering all manner of tulips this year, I restrained myself and kept to a few varieties, all of which harmonise. We grow all our tulips in pots, partly to cut down on animal damage – squirrels, voles and mice love tucking into them – but mainly because our soil is heavy and wet; the very opposite of the conditions tulips thrive in.
But in the brick garden, just below the terrace where pots of tulips stand, another bulb revels in the wet, heavy clay. Camassias abound throughout this garden, and as you glimpse through the yellow globes of the tulips, the blue and green of these special flowers comes into view. It’s a glorious combination; serene and calm. Like most flower spikes, individual flowers open from the bottom up, so as the first flowers open, the buds above are tinged with blue, but still mixed with green, which gives them a glorious turquoise look.
Their wild home was extensive, covering vast areas in the Pacific Northwest. They could be found in both Canada and the USA, and still can. The native American name for Victoria, British Columbia, translates as “the place to gather camassias”.
As part of a lecture tour, I was once lucky enough to visit Victoria. It’s a beautiful place where the garry oak, Quercus garryana, is indigenous and protected within the area to be seen in parks, on roadsides and in people’s gardens. The ecosystem around them (just as with our own native oaks), is incredibly rich. To celebrate and protect their native quamash – camassias – public-funded projects have organised mass plantings of bulbs along roadsides and even central reservations. At this time of year, just as the garry oaks are unfurling their first leaves, the whole place shimmers with a blue haze.
At one time, as well as gathering camassia bulbs from the wild, native people farmed them; lifting, increasing, and replanting them. Although there’s no doubt they appreciated their beauty, the main reason for growing them was to eat them. Their big fat bulbs would be baked or boiled and were an important food source in the winter, since they could be stored without deteriorating.
