Monday 18 May 2020

Dandelion on the Dining Table



I know most folks detest dandelions, but I've come to really appreciate them. I transplant the best looking ones to a rectangular planter we have in the back yard. Bill tolerates this so long as I don't let the seed heads scatter. I've been adding dandelion leaves to my spinach salad at lunch. They are slightly bitter, but nowhere near as bitter as mizuna, which I gather is popular with some folks. 

I was also collecting some red lettuce leaves from the garden one day when I spotted this enormous flower. 

I put it in an old bottle I bought at a brocante in Bourdeaux village a few years ago and added some fern that I love. Mom had bunches of something very like it in her back garden and she called it asparagus fern, though I know it wasn't asparagus. I've never been able to work out what she had. This comes from a bronze fennel plant. No idea if it actually grows fennel, don't care, don't like it. But I do love this fern.

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Can't say Bill was very impressed, but it gave me lots of pleasure for a couple of days. When it wilted I replaced it with this lovely white flower. Bill says it's either a geranium or a pelargonium, but I've no idea which it is. It needed a shorter bottle to get water, I'm guessing it is one of several Vivien gave me one of the last times I saw her.