Nomenclature

So, we’re home again – leaving an Ireland bathed in sunshine and arriving back in Bigtownshire to the massed and looming clouds…

This morning, checking to see what was still standing in the garden (pretty much everything thanks for asking, including the greenhouse – and the daleks kept their heads screwed on as well), I was admiring these flowers which seem to be unstoppable. My mother picked them up in Aldi for five quid as a garden-warming gift when we first moved in, and they’ve been pretty much flowering ever since.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the colour of this flower which is a much deeper red

Certainly in June this year they were flowering their little heads off and kept on going and when they started to fade and look a bit ragged at the end of this summer I almost hesitated to cut them back because I knew it would encourage them to put on a second flush and I was worried it might actually kill them. So far, though, despite the haircut, combined with wind, storms, rain, slugs and hares, nothing seems to dent their enthusiasm. Clearly, wherever Aldi gets its plants from is doing something right.

the same plants in June – everything else in this photo has realised it’s autumn and gone to ground

The only problem was that for ages I had forgotten what they were actually called (they did have labels but I lost them), making it harder to find out how to look after them – had they needed any looking after which, apparently, they don’t – or, more importantly, to sound as if I knew what I was doing when other gardeners came to visit. A quick Google suggests that they are some kind of Dianthus, possibly Neon Star, which should come in handy when I need to replace them when they inevitably die after I post this. Or I can just keep calling them what I’ve been calling them up to now when pressed – “Oh, those? They’re Fromaldi forafiver”.