Having a day to myself, I had just settled myself down to a day watching chick-flicks with mugs of tea . Think again; since when did a mum, grandma, business owner have a day to herself. :) This diversion though was welcome. My daughter in law phoned and said her little family were going to the Bluebell Walks at Rode Hall, South Cheshire about 45 minutes away and would I like to go with them. WOULD I ! ? Yes indeed.
Rode Hall, is a large country house and privately owned by a long established Cheshire gentry family. The hall is an elegant 18th C house standing on a little mound.
Although the house is privately owned, the gardens are open to the public from April to September. There is a farmers' market once a month where farmers sell their own produce.
Photos are all my own and taken by me.
Blarney Castle and Gardens, County Corkon 06/01/2023
An Cóbh, Corcaigh, Eireon 05/29/2023
Dublin ; The Book of Kellson 04/04/2023
The Bee Tree Community CIC;- an online support communityon 08/24/2022
Comments
Thank you. I enjoyed hearing about the Virginia bluebells.
The computer crashed again, before I communicated the last component of the Virginia-bluebells description below.
English Wikipedia carries an informative, albeit brief, article, "Mertensic virginica," that contains clear, helpful images of Virginia-bluebells plant parts, especially of buds, flowers and leaves.
The aforementioned article is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertens....
The computer crashed before I commenced another component of the Virginia-bluebells description below.
The eastern native of North America amasses 5-inch- (13-centimeter-) long, gray-green leaves with entire, smooth, unindented, untoothed margins and with 24-inch- (60-centimeter-) long stems.
The summer-seeding spring flower arranges itself natively, in large groups, in moist, nutrient- and plant-rich woods on low, wooded hillsides.
The aforementioned borage-family member therefore beautifies cultivated shade gardens and wild shade expanses in Kansas southeastward to Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and in Georgia northeastward into Maine and north-central-ward into Quebec and Ontario, Canada.
That plucky pretty flowering plant has quite an interesting range, right?
Thank you for your comment below, on June 6, 2017, in answer to my previous, same-day observation and question.
Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) achieve bell-shaped, nodding flowers at the very end of arched stems. They acquire sky-blue colors even as they admit pink colors sometimes and white colors rarely and even as they always admit pink flower buds.
The flower base adopts a bell-top, fused appearance from five fused, shallow floral lobes even as feminine parts and five stamens also adorn it.
Flowering times agree with mid-spring months even as pollinating times by bee flies, butterflies, flower flies, hummingbird moths, hummingbirds and long-tongued bumblebees agree with late spring and seeding times of seeded, wrinkled nuts align with early-summer months.
Oh Derdriu
That is interesting . Care to share a description of Virginia bluebells. I had never heard of these.
As far as I am aware all these noble families were intermarried and inbred ncluding our royal family. The gene pool from which they drew was very small. The chance are they were related.
Veronica, Thank you for including us on your tour and for the explanation about native versus Spanish bluebells since all I have here is Virginia's.
Is the Rode family for which the Hall is named related to the Jocelyn family that holds the earldom of Roden?
It's interesting to me when hyphenated names are used and when they are not since the Wilbraham relatives of the Rode family appear to have owned the property now far longer than the beneficiaries of Edward II's original gifts for service and support.
Thank you. Of course we all have much to contribute and that makes an interesting jigsaw of experience and expertise. Frank and I are both teachers so we do like to impart knowledge. :)
The inclusion of child friendly activities and searches is a great idea, as a four year old boy will only look at flowers for so long!
Wizzley is an amazing source of knowledge, for I have never heard of a canoe house. And, the idea of having something for children to do when they tire of nature is amazing. Well done. You and Frank are among a handful of those adding content other than chef and movie reviews. Nothing against them, I just prefer reading content othrr than reviews. Yjanks for writing.
I have done a bit of research and found that pink and white varieties are found in both British and Spanish bluebells. So without genetic investigation under a microscope we cannot know whether the plant that you saw is a hybrid or not.
By the way, plant genetics are more complex than animal genetics are, so odd things can happen.