Euphorbias

If you've looked in expecting another French Friday post - don't be disappointed as whilst I shall be doing them from time to time I don't have enough photos or do enough 'French' things to post one every week! But, it is Friday, so I'm opting for a 'Floral Friday' today and going back to my one true love, plants and flowers.

There are three plants which I associate with the yellow flowers of early spring - daffodils, forsythia and euphorbias. The former are either struggling to hold themselves up against the onslaught of wind, pouring rain and frost that we've had lately (the daffodils) whilst the poor old forysthia had more flowers on it in January. The euphorbias, however, have been showing signs of coming to life for several weeks now. Tough as old boots these plants, for the most part pretty drought tolerant, most very frost hardy and some self seed to the point of being almost weeds. For several months in the spring they come to life with their zingy lime greeny yellow flower heads (OK botanically I think they are bracts as the actual flower is a tiny little thing in amongst it all - think of a Poinsettia - the red parts of the 'flower' are actually leaves....) which turn colour as they fade and form seed heads which are equally decorative.

Euphorbia characias - the photo above was taken on 21 Feb and whilst I did have to contort myself and the camera to get a photo as its flower head is pointing downwards, you can see it's starting to come alive. I've taken the liberty with the rest of them to show photos from last year to show what they'll look like later on.

3rd week of March - some flower heads open, others still pointing downwards

Absolutely zinging in April

Euphorbia myrsinitis. This next one is my all time favourite. It's evergreen so provides interest all year round with its succulent-like blue green leaves. It's totally drought proof and weather proof but does self seed like crazy, but it's fun hearing its seed heads going pop and exploding all over the place in the summer. It'll be looking like this in a couple of weeks.

April - starting to form seed pods whilst still looking attractive

A self seeded one, which I think is the same as the wild ones I have in the woodland, Euphorbia amygdaloides (yes I did google to check on the spelling, which I had actually got right!!)

Later flowering comes Euphorbia polychroma, in April.

Another of the later flowering beauties, Euphorbia martinii, with its handsome red flowers.

Showing how it can still be looking stunning in May, when the earlier flowering Euphorbias have lost their bright colours.

I could never be without this family of plants but it's worth mentioning for anyone not familiar with them, to wear gloves when handling them, as the thick milky white sap is a skin irritant and can cause sore rashes when it comes into contact with the skin, particularly when the skin is exposed to sunlight. It's happened to me only once and it wasn't nice!

Ladybirds - real ones and my mum's stories

They are everywhere at the moment! Just like this time last year, they are hampering my progress with tidying up the flower beds and clearing all of last year's dead growth. I'm finding them hiding under fallen leaves and in dead leaves still in place on stalks and as soon as I disturb them, which I can't help but do, they're coming to life and crawling around all over the place. I'm having to fish them out of my bucket of stuff to compost and I keep moving the little darlings so I can weed and have a bit of a dig over the flower beds. Coupled with stopping to take photos of them .... I may finish this task come summer!

They have taken a liking to my ornamental allium stems

All the more reason to not tidy up too much in the garden before winter; as well as seed heads for birds to eat and just purely looking more decorative than a barren, flat garden (and attractive seedheads and colourful stems can be used for Xmas decs), some of those dead stalks and leaves can help provide cover not just for the plant itself against the elements, but for all sorts of critters to overwinter amongst. Not to mention that the more robust stalks I am cutting back are being saved to add to my bee hotel, which I mentioned a while back in THIS posting.

These three were inside a dead leaf as I was cutting back the dead peony stalks!

I had high hopes last year that they would stick around until broad bean time so they could munch up all the aphids but for some reason the majority decided to go elsewhere. There were still a few about though and the aphid problem wasn't anywhere near as bad as usual, so I managed fine with a bit of a squidge and wash with soapy water (mostly for my fingers actually!).

I also found last spring that they took a liking to sitting around on euphorbia flowers - I've no idea why as there were no aphids on these plants but maybe they were attracted by the greeny yellow colour of the blooms? I'll never know but it was amusing; half the time I didn't really notice until I'd uploaded the photos and zoomed in on them!

Up until a couple of years ago I'd never seen more than a few here and there all through the summer. Then one day they came to the rescue in what I can only describe as a miracle, gardening wise.

I have a peach tree in the veg patch that two summers previously had been seriously attacked by blackfly, so much so that it lost half of its leaves and the fruit developed sooty mould as a result of the honeydew all over it (secreted by aphids) so they all dropped off. The poor tree suffered so badly it didn't have a single blossom the following year. So, the next year when it was finally covered in fruit I was really ****** off (I'm trying not to swear on my blog but I can't think of a suitable alternative expression! 'Annoyed' does not quite sum it up) to see it suddenly totally covered in greenfly.

I tried blasting them off several times with the hosepipe to no avail, I mean really, you just can't physically wash off thousands of leaves each covered in dozens of aphids, nor squidge them either. I was at the end of my tether and practically on the verge of giving up and going to buy some horrible chemical because it was one of those times when it had become beyond a joke.......

Then this happened.

Ladybirds appeared. They covered the tree, along with hoverflies, wasps and bees. The latter I believe were drinking the honeydew secreted by the aphids but those ladybirds were just gobbling up the aphids like there was no tomorrow. In less than a week the whole tree was clear! I picked off the fruit that looked like it had too much sticky honeydew on it to recover but was still left with a fair amount, the tree recovered and we had a good harvest of peaches after all.

I can see 9 in this pic

I have truly never experienced anything like it before and felt that at last this was the proof that if you garden with nature, not against it, that eventually there will come about a balance between the good guys and the bad guys and that everybody/thing will be happy and benefit (me included!).

I think these two got a bit carried away after dinner!!!

As an aside, watching ladybirds has reminded me that my mother recently gave me her manuscript of a story she wrote for my brother and I when we were nippers, back in the mid 60s. It was about a family of ladybirds and the adventures that the children got up to in their school holidays. Because it was set in Fiji (which is where we were born) it was a bit unusual but I loved it and mum did all the illustrations herself. It never got published of course and I have some of the rejection letters here - some were polite but some were quite rude, describing mum's illustrations as amateur! Of course they were, but what more would a 5 or 6 year old want?! To have a mini book written and illustrated by your own mother is a great gift, even at the ripe old age of ** (I'm not saying but you can probably guess). Home made rocks!

Here are a few photos of the pics she drew and painted which I hope you like almost as much as I do.

French Friday - food

*WARNING - gruesome photo alert*

I've been chuckling looking back at the photos I (or my OH) have taken over the last few years as absolutely everything contains something that I find particularly revolting! Obviously when I'm served a plate of something I like, I scoff it only to think afterwards that maybe I should have taken a photo - or was it just that it didn't stand out in its ickiness or gruesomeness to instantly merit reaching for the camera?!

Now this one you might think 'what's wrong with it?'. I admit, it does sum up Breton food found all around the coast very well. I adore moules frites, but oysters? Bleugh. Luckily they have been eaten in this photo which was taken at Jospinet on the north coast during a lunch out with friends. But I don't do live food or slimey food.

Then there's this very artfully presented dessert which my OH ordered. You can see I'm interested as it's my arm that's trying to nick the crunchy brown things in the glass. But the ick factor for me is that bowl of cream with the physalis on top. I love cream; single, double, whipped, clotted, sour or even creme fraiche. But I don't do cream with added sugar or vanilla. And I really don't do cream that comes out of a squirty aerosol can, which unfortunately abounds in France, and is very popular.

My OH, on the other hand, loves the stuff and is always ordering revolting ice cream sundae concoctions which are liberally covered in this stuff. Gross.

Two? What a piggy!

He knows it makes me barf so I think he does it on purpose, just to wind me up.

Nooooooooo!

Then there's our summer hamlet get togethers. One year we had Tete de Veau. That's calf's head. I had the honour of watching the ladies boil their brains out (literally) in their arriere-cuisine, to end up with this .....

All the meat was picked off until this was left. I am glad to see at least one person found it necessary to wear marigolds!

And the brains? Why, here's a nice bowl of them if you still have any appetite left. No, I won't subject you to a large photo of them as I won't be able to eat my own lunch. Barf!

It was interesting to note that all children and practically everyone under 50 (and all 4 of us English) ate chicken, which was the alternative.

The year before at our 'do', we had this:

Which could have been nice, had it not been pink all the way through and served with innard stuffing. Half cooked trotters anyone? Needless to say I filled up on starters and pud!

French cuisine doesn't do it for me in the same way as Spanish. Now this I'd happily nip back to San Sebastian for (plus a bit of warmth and sunshine!).

Calamari and not hot fried chillies

Bon appetit! :-)))))