Celandines: a nice surprise

As I have reported before, I am reading "Weeds" by Richard Mabey, a book which changes one's view of weeds, and turns one into an enthusiast. So now, as I take my constitutional around Virginia Water, I am saddened by the lack of weeds and thrilled to spot a few celandines in a glade - but on closer inspection they turn out to be a bijou type of daffodil.

Richard Mabey is particularly fond of celandines.

But the best lawn weed, the flower that says, decisively, here is the spring and the new sun, is the lesser celandine. It's rather fussy in our garden, and only really flourishes in a damp corner under the cherry-plums which we mow no more than three or four times a year. But for six or so weeks from the middle of February it makes that dappled glade shine. It's the only word. Celandine's petals, like buttercups, seem able to reflect the light, as if they were made of yellow metal, or oil, or most persuasively, molten butter...

Wordsworth noticed its precocious flowering, and wondered why such an exquisite bloom had not been more feted. For those of us who share Wordsworth's view, it is mysterious why celandine is hounded from most lawns, and why a turf of pure velvet green is preferred to a multi-coloured quilt. 

So, on my last trip to Virginia Water, I was accompanied by my friend Jane, and went raving on about my boring garden and its lack of celandines.


 So imagine my delight when Jane dropped off half a dozen celandine plants outside my door! What a great surprise. She has just told me that she dug them up from her sister's Hampshire garden.

I planted them in 2 locations in my garden and I hope they "take".

Jane takes her camera to VW because she has one with all sorts of clever settings, and is trying to find out what it can do, and even goes to classes to learn about Getting the Most from your Digital Camera. We both tried to take pictures of the buds on the birch trees. - not an easy subject.



I hope hers came out better than mine (camera phone again).
 

Jane found a lot of honey bees being very active in the heather - and told me that our native honey bee is actually quite small and black, but it suffered a terrible disease in Victorian times, so other bees which were more wasp-like in appearance were brought in from abroad, but she prefers, I think, to see quite dark ones. Jane keeps three hives of bees and even made her own - thing to keep bees in - made out of straw?