I’ve seen them, too, in Mediterranean gardens—Carolyn Hanbury has vast clumps of dendrobiums in pots at La Mortola, Italy—and in tropical gardens (oh, the dark-blue vandas in Singapore!), but, somehow, they never really engender any great fondness, let alone love or passion, in my temperate soul. That’s fine—one cannot fall for everything and, after all, some people don’t share my enthusiasm for roses. More fool them.
This is the month to go orchid hunting in Mediterranean countries. The richness and profusion of wild orchids in April is often unbelievable—some are so widespread that the locals gather the roots to make a drink called salep. I would love to taste it, but, nowadays, all orchids are protected by CITES and local laws, although the harvest continues, for example, in parts of Turkey and Greece. Yes, we have orchids in England and, in midsummer, you can see large patches of spotted orchids, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, and pyramidal orchids, Anacamptis pyramidalis, in woodlands and roadside verges, but never so boldly or ubiquitously as in less intensively cultivated landscapes abroad. In fields and meadows, olive groves and on uncultivated hillsides, the richness and variety of hardy orchids is truly awesome.
この記事は Country Life UK の April 10, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Country Life UK の April 10, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Put some graphite in your pencil
Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
A haunt of ancient peace - The gardens at Iford Manor, near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire The home of the Cartwright-Hignett family
After recent renovations, this masterpiece of Harold Peto's garden-making must be counted one of the finest gardens in England
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market
How golden was my valley
These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale
Mere moth or merveille du jour?
Moths might live in the shadows of their more flamboyant butterfly counterparts, but some have equally artistic names, thanks to a 'golden' group, discovers Peter Marren
The magnificent seven
The Mars Badminton Horse Trials, the oldest competition of its kind in the world, celebrates its 75th anniversary this weekend. Kate Green chooses seven heroic winners in its history
Angels in the house
Winged creatures, robed figures and celestial bodies are under threat in a rural church. Jo Caird speaks to the conservators working to save northern Europe's most complete Romanesque wall paintings