Yellow Horned-Poppy, Glaucium flavum

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Yellow Horned-Poppy - acrylic by Vanna Bartlett

Yellow Horned-Poppy – acrylic by Vanna Bartlett

I’ve just returned from a day’s birdwatching trip to the North Norfolk coast to see the Western Sandpiper at Cley Norfolk Wildlife Trust Reserve.

To the seaward side of the reserve is Cley Shingle Bank. This used to be a high bank of shingle but in the last few years it has changed dramatically. A sea surge at the end of 2007 damaged the nearby beach cafe beyond repair and flattened the profile of the bank. It is now a gently shelving expanse of shingle.

But the Yellow Horned-Poppies (Glaucium flavum) seem to like the disturbance and there are lots of them between the reserve’s fields and the main part of the shingle. They thrive in this sort of habitat with long roots to seek water beneath the shingle. (View British distribution map.) The plants are poisonous, so don’t eat them.

Today the poppies were in their winter colours – dry, dead seedheads with rosettes of grey-green leaves at the base. But in the summer they will bloom again, their golden petals showing up against the leaves and the sunny skies.

Yellow Horned-Poppies - Winter

Yellow Horned-Poppies – Winter

Yellow Horned-Poppies - Summer

Yellow Horned-Poppies – Summer

Leeks – a great survivor

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Leeks in the snow at the allotment

Leeks in the snow at the allotment

We’ve had a mild winter so far, very different from the cold spells we had during the winters of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011.

Leeks (Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum) are one of my favourite winter vegetables and they survive in even the coldest winters. However, East Anglia is a dry part of Britain and when a lack of rainfall is combined with a free draining sandy soil, as on our allotment, leeks grow slowly and will never beat any records for size.

In 2011 I sowed leeks direct in the soil outside and in a seed tray in an unheated greenhouse, which I moved out into the back garden after a few weeks.

I was able to give the leeks in seed trays a lot more water and they were about pencil thickness when I planted them out at the allotment and they are now a reasonable size. But the leeks sown direct are still little more than blades of grass, as there just wasn’t enough water in the spring and early summer.

Leek

Leek – watercolour by Vanna Bartlett

As an added complication, leek moth is rife at the allotments, so plants have to be covered with Enviromesh to exclude the moths. Without a layer of protection, leek moths lay their eggs on the leeks and the caterpillars hollow out the leek stems. In a dry, hot year about half the leek crop can be destroyed.

So it’s worth giving leeks a bit of extra care and attention during spring and summer, then in late October when leek moths are no longer flying, you can take off the covers and let them stand up to the worst of the winter on their own.

The reward? A lovely, versatile winter vegetable, which can be used in a large range of recipes, such as leek flan, one of my favourites.

There are quite a few varieties of leek, if you’d like to grow your own from seed. “Musselburgh” is a reliable, hardy old variety and “Natan” is good too, though I haven’t found the seed on sale for a couple of years.

Gunnera manicata (aka “giant rhubarb”)

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Gunnera at Bayfield Hall

Gunnera at Bayfield Hall

Last year we finally planted a Gunnera manicata plant in the back garden.

I’ve admired this plant for many years though when I was about four or five years old I found it rather terrifying when I first encountered it at Sheffield Park Gardens. We even have a lino print of Gunnera by H J Jackson on our dining room wall.

Gunnera manicata is often called ‘giant rhubarb’, though it’s in a separate family, Gunneraceae, and no relative of rhubarb, which is a member of the dock family, Polygonaceae. It comes from the Serra do Mar mountains of southeastern Brazil. The plant thrives by water, often a large lake in a big garden. Its leaves are massive and can reach 11 feet in favourable circumstances. There are some lovely specimens in the grounds of Bayfield Hall in North Norfolk, which I photographed in spring a couple of years ago.

Our baby Gunnera

Our baby Gunnera

In June 2011 we visited a garden just off Unthank Road in Norwich, open as part of an event called ‘Golden Gardens’, which raised money for Age UK Norfolk. In a garden no bigger than our own was a healthy Gunnera, not the biggest we’ve seen but a stately specimen nonetheless. There was no pond but it was in a shady spot in rich soil. So about a month later I bought a specimen of Gunnera manicata from a local garden centre and it is now growing at the top of the garden in shade.

Gunnera needs protection from frost so it is normal practice to cut off the leaves in autumn and invert them over the crowns for protection. Then when spring comes the new leaves burst their way through the old ones as this magnificent plant comes back to life.

Gunnera - sleeping...

Gunnera – sleeping…