Aquatic plants
Glory be I have a flower in my water trough.
Please don’t ask me the name of this dear little plant. I took the label off intending to read up on all the information. And promptly lost it.
It may be in London where I am usually at more leisure to do some garden research.
You rarely get a glimpse of this part of the courtyard. Mainly because nothing much happens. The bullrushes get fatter each year. I can’t even lift any to reposition them. Their roots are firmly anchored to the base of the old clothes washing trough.
And the water lilies flower. Sometimes. But I have no influence over them. They put on growth, they flower, they get bashed about. They sink. They hide.
I can well remember buying them nine years ago. I was at a plant nursery at the foot of the Vercors mountains. In a tiny hamlet called St Vincent de la Colomberie.
It was spring so there was not much to see in the ponds but the nursery owner suggested I buy the lilies. They were expensive (I was buying fifty pennisetum grasses at the time.) and I was dithering. I could see the labels on the front of the pond picturing some glamorous flowers. But which plant (sulking at the bottom of the pond) related to the pictures? I wanted some deeply crimson ones. I picked two.
They flowered. One is pale yellow, and the other a grubby white. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.
And the leaves were deeply battered by a recent hail storm. So I’m not selling lilies to you here. I had to go all the way back to 2013 to find a decent shot of the flowers.
They are scented according to my notes. Hmm. I’ve obviously not leaned over and smelt my lilies for years and years.
Maybe if I had planted some vibrantly coloured ones they would stand out like this little pink flower above. And I would take more care.
At least Artur likes the water troughs. He can stagger up and have a drink. If the level hasn’t dropped low in the drought.
He has to wait his turn mind you. Half the wasp population of the mountain drinks here too. Quite the spot for insect gazing.