FLOWER FRIDAY - THERE'S NOT MUCH ABOUT!

After I had had my shower this morning, I decided to go for a wander around the garden to see if I could see any flowers for the Flower Friday challenge - and yes, before you ask, I was wearing my pink robe and I can tell you, it was pretty chilly out there.

I did find a few rather bedraggled flowers, but as they didn’t look that good, I came indoors to see if there was anything better.  In a little box on the conservatory windowsill, I came across some Cirsium seed heads.  You have probably all seen these, but didn’t realise their name - but their common name is plume thistle.  I plucked these from some plants in a garden near Hungerford and stuffed them into the pocket of my fleece - the only trouble with doing that is that they stick to the fleece and every time I put my hand into my pocket, I pull out more seed heads.

It will be interesting to see what colour the thistles are, but I guess that is the fun of gardening, often you don’t know quite what will come up, so when Mr. HCB plants the seeds next year in the Spring, we will watch with interest and of course, if they do germinate, I will be sure to Blip them.

I thought I would try and find out some more information so asked Google about Cirsium and it came up with the following:

“Cirsium is a genus of perennial and biennial flowering plants in the Asteraceae, one of several genera known commonly as thistles. They are more precisely known as plume thistles. These differ from other thistle genera in having feathered hairs to their achenes, which is a small, dry one-seeded fruit that does not open to release the seed.

Mr. HCB is a little fed up at the moment because he was hoping to have a day in the garden, sorting out the greenhouse and pulling up the trailing nasturtiums and lots of other dead and dying plants, but it has started raining yet again, so he is now indoors enjoying a cup of coffee and doing a sudoku puzzle - I don’t think he will be fed up for long though!

“Don’t judge each day
     by the harvest you reap
          but by the seeds that you plant.”
Robert Louis Stevenson