Guerrilla Gardening in Milan

My favourite example of guerrilla gardening in Milan is along the tram lines just outside the centre of town. In Milan the trams mostly run along the roads -or rather don't, because the Milanese habit of double parking on bends usually means that at a certain point the trams find they can't pass. And if one tram gets stuck, the one behind does too. And the one behind that, and .... So you not infrequently find a little row of ten or so trams patiently waiting for the tow-away truck to turn up and remove the car whose bright spark of an owner decided to park it too close to the tram lines.

However, in the few instances where the roads are wide enough, the trams have their own lane down the middle of the road, with the tracks going in each direction usually divided by some scrubby, weedy grass and the odd tree.

And a few years ago, in one of these areas, some hollyhocks suddenly sprang up. There's no way they could have got there by chance - someone must have planted them intentionally. And every year since, they've multiplied, so that they now spread about 50 yards along the tram lines. Have they just self-seeded or does that same guerrilla gardener go back each year to collect the seeds and plant them again a bit further along? I suspect so, and if s/he goes on, in a few years they'll be stupendous. At that point the tramlines run for about a kilometer before they hit the road again, and a line of hollyhocks extending all the way along would be glorious.

My own hollyhocks on the balcony have done quite well this year, but the colours have been disappointing. They were supposed to be mixed, but the majority came up white, with just a couple of pinky ones and one beautiful deep red variety. The white ones would have been nice if they'd been mixed in with brighter colours, but whole containers of white were a bit boring. Nice for scanner photos though.

So despite my intention to grow them as perennials, I think I'll take most of them out at the end of the year and start again. They're full of seed heads though, and it would be a pity to waste them. Maybe I'll take a walk along the tram lines ....

Read more...

The first hollyhocks

In May something seems to happen every day. Only three days ago I said that my hollyhocks were in bud but not yet blooming, but look at them now.

I've got about seven plants all together, and as they came from some seeds I collected a couple of years ago, I'm not sure what colours I'll get. But that's part of the fun. I love the delicate pale pink of this one.

These are plants which I sowed just under two years ago. I must have put them in too late in the year for them to flower the following summer - they hardly grew at all last year. But this year they just shot up, although some which I transplanted lost a few lower leaves - I think it may have been rust or a watering problem rather than the move itself. But they're now all where I want them, so at the end of the summer I'll leave them where they are and see how they get on as perennials.

Another plant which is related to the hollyhock (both are part of the malvaceae family) has also just come into bloom - my mallow. It recovered well from the red spider mite attack of a few weeks back and, though it lost a few leaves, is now looking healthy again. The flowers aren't as spectacular as those of the hollyhocks, but they're nice in a delicate sort of way.

The "fight against the mite" is still going on. Although the mallow now seems clear, some of the other plants have been slightly affected. Luckily the weather seems to be on my side - the mites don't like the cold wet conditions we've been having, and that gives me a headstart on them. I've been merciless in ripping off any leaves I've seen affected, and so far things are under control. But it's too soon to feel confident. There's another four months of relentless struggle ahead ...

Read more...

Hollyhocks

The last day of the month and the last chance to write about this month's featured flower on my calendar - hollyhocks.

Hollyhocks are one of my favourite flowers and, after last year's success, I planted loads last autumn. But it was obviously too late for them to flower this year, and they've settled for being triennial rather than biennial. They all got to about two foot in height and then stopped, though they've gone on putting out new leaves. Despite the caterpillar damage, they should be fine for next year.

Before I saw the calendar, I'd not realised that hollyhocks had medicinal uses, but apparently the flowers are good against things like sore throats, laryngitis, bronchitis and so on. You make a tea by steeping the petals in cold water for two hours, draining the liquid off and then either drinking it in small sips, or gargling with it - within five hours, so that it's fresh. The liquid can also be used externally for skin problems.

Browsing various articles on the web for more information on hollyhocks, I came across the book A Contemplation Upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature on Google books. It tells of a legend concerning a fairy island that would appear every Midsummer's Day at the point where the Wye and Severn rivers join on the border of Wales and England. Mortals were allowed to reach the island by means of a tunnel under the river and, though they never saw the fairies, would be treated to a day of music and feasting. The only condition was that nothing should ever be taken from the island, which the humans respected until one year a young girl wanted to take back a bunch of flowers which she had picked there. Her mother stopped her, but in secret the girl slipped one of the flowers into her pocket. As the people returned home through the tunnel, the girl turned into a hollyhock, her pink pinafore becoming the pink flowers of the plant. And never again did the island appear.

Read more...

On Zinnias and Peanuts

But let’s start with the successes … This year I’ve been really proud of my zinnias and my hollyhocks. The zinnias came from seeds taken from one small plant which I bought last year, and have done extremely well. Our conditions suit them down to the ground – hot sun, limy water... I also tried a trick I’d read about in one of my gardening books – peanut shells in the earth to aerate the soil and provide a gradual, non-nitrogen rich fertiliser. It seems to have worked.

I was also really pleased with my Hollyhocks. They were an experiment as I got the seeds from England and wasn’t sure if they’d take kindly to being pot bound, or to the temperatures here. But they’ve been wonderful. I had three – pale lemon, pale pink and a wonderful colour which isn’t mauve, isn’t purple, isn’t red and isn’t pink, but is somehow all of those rolled into one. They’ve been flowering for weeks, and though they’re now past their best are still forming buds. They lost a few lower leaves to red spider mite early on in the year, but since I dealt with that haven’t had a single problem.

I'd never seen hollyhocks in Milan before I
planted mine, but this year there’s been a glorious display of them growing along the tram lines near Piazza Cinque Giornate. There’s no way they could have got there by chance – someone wanting to brighten up the city must have scattered the seeds. And they were wonderful –about 30 of them in every colour you could imagine. Some of their seeds are now germinating on my back balcony ….

Read more...