Seedlings

The intricate beauty of pine cones...

It's Good Friday, 5.30 pm and Granny is sitting on a rug at the end of her garden in hot sunshine. The air is simply filled with gentle birdsong and a lady blackbird has just dashed away with a beak full of moss-strands for her nest-building.

Immediately above me I become ware of an irregular clicking and the source of the strange noise is pine-cones flicking open in the heat. They are from our Scots Pine and I notice some have fallen, ready to disgorge their seeds.

Sometimes we have a small raiding-party of long-tailed tits, who bustle through its branches only announcing their presence by a feint breathy wheezing before darting away. Blink and you'll miss them! Today I also spotted, for the first time in years, a tiny gold-crest, smaller than a wren, inspecting the branches for succulent treats.

Like several trees in our garden, this Scots Pine is home-grown. 32 years ago we left our home in Norwich, where our front garden hosted the mother-tree and as a reminder of her much-loved silhouette, I potted up one of her seedlings that lived with us in a pot in the garden for our five-year stay on the outskirts of London.

This tall off-spring is now assuming the same lazily-leaning angle the mother-tree had and in the coming years I expect both trees to acquire the rusty-trunked and arthritic contortions of old age associated with ancient Scots Pines dotted across East Anglia. Perhaps not while I am still alive though...

This evening our tree is getting ready to shed more cones and its gentle percussion is music to my ears.Perhaps I ought to seek out some more seeds and pot up a grandchild or two that will carry the line through well into the next century!

Reassembling a 1959 Lawnmower

'What?' I hear you cry.

Let me explain...

Presenter James May

Hubby and I had recently stumbled on James May's Programme about model railway enthusiasts and much enjoyed his droll sense of humour. So when we found him tackling the awesome task of completely reassembling an old petrol-driven mower, we watched in fascination.

Laid out immaculately on a white sheet on a bench-top, were 322 individual mechanical parts. May had the original line-drawings only to go by, and accompanied by his trademark dry sense of humour, set to work on the mammoth task of reassembly.

Much twiddling and clunking later (10 hours plus - edited!), the lawn-mower appeared complete and we were sharing with him the fearful anticipation as to whether the engine would actually start! It did of course and we happily and metaphorically mowed the grass with him.

May confessed he'd been hooked by lawn mowers since being allowed to cut the grass with his parents' mower as a 12 year-old, and that had led to his lifetime interest in engineering. My own older grandson is the same and for the much the same reason.

I myself have never been remotely interested in the mechanics of anything but had I seen that riveting programme in my youth, and had there been equal opportunities for girls back then, I might well have considered the challenges of engineering as a career!

The mower itself was a Suffolk Colt, made entirely at the Suffolk Foundry. Another subject I hope to return to...

www.oldlawmowersclub.co.uk

Fabulous Forsythia

Who doesn't love Forsythia? The sight of its vibrant yellow flowers really makes Spring feel like Summer! It is very commonplace but nevertheless much treasured as a reminder of sunny days to come.

It was a surprise to me when I found out that Forsythia is a genus of flowing plants in the olive family Oleacea. There are about 11 species mostly native to eastern Asia, Japan, China, and Korea. No species of Forsythia was common in cultivation before about 1850 and it was not until 1908 that the first outstanding variety was imported into this country. Since those times many cultivars have been created.

We are most familiar with the early-flowing bush or small tree common to many parks and gardens named after Scottish botanist William Forsyth, (1737-1804), royal head gardener in Kensington and founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society. Its hardy four-lobed yellow flowers are produced in profusion in early spring before the leaves. These become pendent in rainy weather thus shielding the reproductive parts. The fruit is a dry capsule, containing several winged seeds.

Forsythia suspensa (Lian Qiao) with its graceful arching branches is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs of Chinese herbology in use for over 4,000 years for ailments such as skin conditions. According to some legends, once forsythia begins to bloom, it means you’ll still have three more snowfalls before the winter is truly over but I've a suspicion this applies only to the Far East...?

In numerology, forsythia with its four joined petals is associated with the number 4 which is the number of Foundation: the four winds, the four seasons, the four astrological elements. 4's are solid, 'four-square' and reliable, so like those stoic forsythias in our gardens.

In the Victorian era, flowers were assigned special meanings, as part of a secret language hidden within bouquets and vases of mixed blooms and foliage. Forsythia was associated with anticipation which fits nicely with its role as a vibrant harbinger of Spring and the seasons to follow.

Korea has a musical instrument called the ajaeng, whose string were made of twisted silk supported by separate movable bridges was plucked or played with a bow. The bow is some 65 cm (25 inches) long, fashioned from a peeled and hollow forsythia branch that has been hardened with pine resin which helps resonation.