Latin Lessons, Angel’s Wings, What Sap?, Boxing Clever, Celebrate Solstice & Christmas Chuckles

Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
24^th December 2022

Latin Lessons

I was given a lovely plant by a client this week with the attached message reading, ‘Thank You for being an absolute Angel and looking after my Dad’s garden and brightening his days with your visits.’ The stunning plant is called Angels’ Wings, or to give it it’s fancy name, Senecio candidans ‘Angel Wings’.

In Latin, ‘candida’ means ‘dazzling white’, and whilst the velvety leaves are actually more silvery, you can easily see how it earned the ‘dazzling white’ description.

Dad was excellent at Latin and when my brother and I were growing up, he would teach us as much as he could, all through plant names, and he explained that the name always included a description of a particular aspect of the plant.  His favourite example was always Magnolia stellata where the flowers are ‘star-like’ (stellata).  Magnolia soulangeana, on the other hand, has large saucer-like flowers, with soulangeana translating as saucer.

A few years ago, the million pound answer on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ was ‘Quercus rubra’ (Red Oak) – which I yelled excitedly at the TV.  Just a shame I hadn’t known many of the answers up to that point!

Angel’s Wings

‘Angel’s Wings’ has evergreen, rounded, silver leaves with a soft, velvety feel, which also make it extremely tactile and perfect for sensory gardens.  Grown as a striking foliage plant, it makes an impressive focal point in beds and borders and is also very happy and effective in large pots.

Reaching a height and spread of around 40cm (16”), it is low maintenance, high reward, drought resistant and tolerant of coastal conditions and salty air.  It’s also known as ‘Sea Cabbage’ because of this tolerance.

It’s not keen on a lot of rain, especially in the winter – or the harsh temperatures we had last week – but that’s when it’s best grown in a container and moved to a protected position during the winter months.

Grown for the lovely leaves, it does have yellow flowers in the spring, which look very much like ragwort flowers and is how it gets another common name, ‘Shining White Ragwort’.  Senecio is part of the daisy family – one of the largest ‘families’ in the plant world – and which also includes ragwort and groundsels.

I just adore plant ‘family-trees’.

What Sap?

My Uncle gave me a lovely gift a few Christmases ago – a little prayer book with the inscription, ‘Mabel Allbutt. 1899’.  He told me that she would have been 15 when she wrote in it.

It sparked an interest in my own family tree and made me realise that at some stage we seem to become more interested in looking back than forward.  Although it has been said that we study history because we are interested in the future.

A little ironic for the time of year, Mabel’s parents were Mary and Joseph.  Joseph was a gardener.  I have discovered that the majority of my male ancestors on my father’s side were gardeners.  I knew that my father’s father and his father were gardeners but it’s nice to know that the green fingers point back a lot further.

And my grandfather and great grandfather on my mother’s side were also professional gardeners, and for those of you who don’t already know, my brother although a qualified engineer, has spent the majority of his professional life as a gardener too.

I don’t think we have blood in our veins, we have sap.

Boxing Clever

Did you know that ‘Boxing Day’ – first recorded in 1833 – has never had its official origin determined.

However, one theory is that the name refers to holiday gifts.

A ‘Christmas Box’ in Britain was also a Christmas present. So it is thought that as Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants, that was the day when they received a gift from their employer.

The servants would also be allowed go home on Boxing Day to give gifts or ‘boxes’ to their own families.

Celebrate Solstice

Wednesday 21st was a very special day – the winter solstice. I think for many gardeners and outdoor workers, the winter solstice is almost as much anticipated as Christmas, as it is the shortest day and brings the promise of lengthening daylight.

The world ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin ‘solstitium’ meaning ‘sun stands still’, because the apparent movement of the Sun’s path stops before changing direction. So at the winter solstice, the apparent position of the Sun reaches its most southerly point against the background stars.

The shortest day lasts 7 hours 49 minutes and 42 seconds in London, meaning that the length of day during the winter solstice is 8 hours, 49 minutes shorter than the summer solstice.  Oh bring on those summer days …

And whilst we all say, ‘Days are getting drawing out’, the daylight only increases by an average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds every day after 21 December. So we won’t actually have an extra hour of daylight until around the 18 January, and then another hour every four weeks, or so.  Hooray!

Christmas Chuckles

Dad used to love Christmas, and a rare few days off work.  He was keen on card games like Pontoon as well as Scrabble and the occasional game of Monopoly.  I was having this conversation at a gathering last week with several actors and TV personalities and laughed out loud when one of their sons said, “I’m not keen on Christmas games. When you grow up playing charades with Richard Briars it puts you off a bit.’

I laughed again when one of the lads had a sore throat in work yesterday and one of the others quickly and cleverly diagnosed ‘Tinselitis’.  It instigated a flurry of festive funnies.

Apparently there are three stages of man – the first is when he believes in Father Christmas, the second when he plays Father Christmas and the third is when he just looks like Father Christmas.

The weather report for Christmas Eve is 100% chance of reindeer.

What does every gardener want for Christmas?  Peas and quiet.

Why does Santa have three gardens?  So he can Hoe Hoe Hoe.

I hope you all have the Christmas that you want and stay happy, healthy, well and warm. Try to spend some time outdoors over the festive period – remember you don’t need a USB port to connect with nature.

Merry Always and a Happy Everything to you all.