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| December 2nd 2011 |
I'm stuck. I'm well and truly stuck. I've tried to understand - and failed.
Julia of
Plot 108 has tried to help me out. She's given me some very useful links (
here's one) - but I'm still lost. I really can't understand ivy.
I see it creeping on its little feet behind the loose bark of trees, burdening branches, pulling down walls. I know you can grow a new plant if you cut off a piece that has toes - but when it comes to its flowers and berries - I'm lost but entranced.
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| December 2nd 2011 |
Ivy persists and blunders its way into almost anything. Ditto me. In the true spirit of this blog, I will not let ignorance get in its way.
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| December 2nd 2011 |
When the berries are ripe, they will be black. They are far from this yet but all sorts of other stages are around together so, by posting before the sequence is complete, I hope these pictures will encourage you to go and look for yourselves.
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| December 2nd 2011 |
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| November 4th 2011 |
Ivy produces flowers only where it is sunny - and it is often allowed to thrive only in shade - which is why many of us are unfamiliar with what they look like. And where it flowers, its leaves change. They become elongated instead of heart shaped.
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| November 4th 2011 |
And why do I talk of explosions? . . . I first began taking photographs of ivy at the beginning of November, just when our town had a firework display. I'd always assumed the huge ones with which such events always end represent chrysanthemums. Now I know I've been wrong. They are ivy.
11 comments:
Ivy is one of the most interesting plants that we seldom investigate. See this site, there are five posts on Ivy. http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/search/label/Ivy
Phil Gates who writes the blog is a Botanist at Durham university. Top chap!
How weird of me to have noticed ivy berries, but never the preceding flowers! I think they're great plants and the birds do too; the blackbirds in the garden back home will sit for ages munching on the berries.
We have sun, but I've only seen ivy flowers 'n berries in Christmas carols.
The holly and the ivy ...
They remind me of posh chandeliers!
So unusual, and nice to learn about as we have nothing like it here
Ivy flowers are beautiful and the plant itself is a wonderful resource for birds and insects. I have quite a big area of it on the wall at the bottom of my garden, it's left deliberately for wildlife and provides food and shelter in the worst of the winter weather. I love it.
Who would have thought that something as common as ivy would look so stunning in close up.
I have never seen the flowers or berries...how amazing..
I'm going to look at the ivy flowers in greater detail from now on as those flowers are quite pretty.
I like your version of what this plant represents. Cute, and squiggly.
Great shots, I will never look at Ivy the same way again.
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
A fascinating observation of what we take for granted Lucy. Makes me feel quite blind since I spent last week hacking it back from a boundary wall (and come to think of it most of the flowers were on top). Will keep my eyes peeled from now on
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