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emlovesplants.bsky.social
Emlovesplants
@emlovesplants.bsky.social
160 followers 300 following 16 posts
Head Gardener in Cheshire. All things horticultural but particularly Begonia, Salvia and Primula.
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emlovesplants.bsky.social
Perfect spring for tulips, planted here with Geum
May 4, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
bluebellcottage.bsky.social
Trees! We now stock a hand-picked selection of ornamental and orchard trees, peat-free and UK grown, ideal for smaller/medium gardens. They'll be added to our website over the next few days. Here's the first - our beloved Prunus 'Shirotae'. www.bluebellcottage.co.uk/plant/PRU120...
April 18, 2025 at 5:55 AM
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scsheil.bsky.social
My talented wife @jeaniefinlay.com has turned my 'Adrian Chills' stories (short horror stories inspired by the Guardian columns of Adrian Chiles) into actual columns!
A mock-up of a Guardian column. The headline reads: Every autumn I am shunned by friends and neighbours. But I think I've finally broken the curse. The text reads: Year after year, I struggle to give away an enormous crop of scarred, worm-eaten apples. Each Autumn I rise, my scarred, worm-eaten hands digging up through the earth to reach the surface, my sightless, worm-eaten eyes facing the cold white moon above. On flesh-stripped, worm-eaten legs I tread the desire paths which wend their way through the trees, pausing with each broken step to bend and reach for the mangled fruits which pepper the orchard floor, the heavy hessian scrumper’s sack which hangs from my whip-wounded, worm-eaten shoulders becoming gradually filled to the point of bursting. When my sleepless bones can carry no more, I set out on the slow walk towards the village, to find the kin of those who made me pay for the theft of their crop, ready to give back what they so cruelly demanded. My scarred, worm-eaten hands knock on each door, and I await their answer. I bring their own rotten fruit, ready for them to taste. A mock-up of a Guardian column: The headline reads: Scatter cushions and bedspreads - can someone explain to me what they're for? The text reads: Every night I hurl them off the bed. Every morning they are replaced. I don’t know how or by whom, but the cushions are there; varied in size and colour and pattern - some small, some large, some soft as marshmallow, some rigid as bedsprings - they crowd the pillow where I lay my head each night like a Greek chorus. And like a chorus, some nights before I throw them on the floor, I swear I can hear them whispering. On the last night of my stay, I have disquieting dreams. My limbs whither to almost nothing, becoming little more than limp tassels attached to a bloating trunk. I feel my neck retract, pulling my rapidly diminishing head into the straight line of my shoulders, my bones disintegrating into mush. Soon I am looking out through sightless eyes from a body that is all torso, its skin now woven like fabric, muscle- and bloodless. I strain every part of what remains of my body to edge myself along the wooden floor and up the bedpost to the bedspread. There I join the chorus and finally hear their whispered song, now clear to my earless ears as what it always had been - a siren call. A mock-up of a Guardian column. The headline reads 'Where have all the headphones gone on public transport? The noise is eating into my soul'. The text reads: The bus is stuck in traffic, has been for nearly ten minutes now. I’m at the front on the top deck, so I can see the problem up ahead - two vehicles have collided, strewing debris across both lanes. Two police cars frame the scene, their blue lights pulsing in the evening rain. All I want to do is get home. The headache which has been squatting in my skull this last while is filling more and more of my consciousness, blotting out every other thought, every other sensation. Everything but the sound. Somewhere behind me, music is playing, the tinny tsch tsch tsch of a mobile phone speaker. The noise is eating into my soul. It’s like a skewer on which the pain is impaled and revolving, a parasite buried so deep it has become an integral part of the host. I try to move my head to see what kind of person would subject others to this torment, but all I can glimpse is an outstretched bloody hand on the bus floor, the cracked phone beneath broken fingers. Above the noise, beyond it, I hear the sound of ambulances approaching. I try to turn again, to see the face of my torturer, but I can barely manage more than an inch. The shattered windscreen which cradles my bloodied head like a crown just won’t let me move any further.
April 10, 2025 at 9:49 AM
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seawindowcraster.bsky.social
www.mickoxley.com/fresh-paint

25% of all original sales will go to
@newcastlefoodbank.org
April 1, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
ukflora.bsky.social
@bsbibotany.bsky.social @commonbynature.bsky.social can anyone id this spurge. One clump found at Corby Northamptonshire
March 16, 2025 at 6:40 PM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Iris 'George' under Cornus 'Midwinter Fire'
Purple flowers under orange stems
February 22, 2025 at 9:28 AM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Great thread. We struggle to grow a wide range of natives in our meadows but Primrose do well. The moths like the less glamorous wildflowers that thrive here, such as docks and cleavers.
haggewoods.bsky.social Lin Hawthorne @haggewoods.bsky.social · Feb 10
To a Primrose
Welcome, pale primrose, starting up between
Dead matted leaves of oak and ash, that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through
John Clare

Primula vulgaris supports nearly 40 species of invertebrate as a larval host, & most of them are Lepidoptera.
#Invertebrates
February 11, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
seawindowcraster.bsky.social
31st January 2025 09.35
31st January 2025 09.35
January 31, 2025 at 9:46 AM
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carlbovisnature.bsky.social
Snipe hiding its long bill in the water! 😁
Taken this week at RSPB Greylake in Somerset. 🐦
#birds 🪶
Here are all my links;
linktr.ee/carlbovis
A Snipe and its reflection as it probes its long bill into the water looking for invertebrates
January 25, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
stephaniehafferty.bsky.social
A reminder to Brits that neem oil is not a legal pesticide in the UK. Seen it recommended on the website of a large UK Hort business. Awful stuff, an indiscriminate killer which kills beneficial pollinators & predators.

Even aphids are a crucial part of the ecosystem.
January 23, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
forestsforever.bsky.social
The nature cure: how time outdoors transforms our memory, imagination and logic. Without engaging with natural environments, our brains cease to work well. Exposure to nature isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity.

Includes a quote by @jamesgilbertmr.bsky.social
The nature cure: how time outdoors transforms our memory, imagination and logic
Without engaging with natural environments, our brains cease to work well. As the new field of environmental neuroscience proves, exposure to nature isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2023 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
zubaplants.bsky.social
I really like old herbarium illustrations. Last year I wrote some software to parse, score, and process the Oxford 400 herbarium dataset to remove the paper background and select the best photos.
If anyone needs a collection of beautiful plant photos...
github.com/borncamp/oxf...
November 21, 2024 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
mehceephotos.bsky.social
The sun begins to sink lower over Castell y Gwynt and a temperature inversion. Thank you to Kimberley for kindly / unwittingly modelling for me 😊

I had intended to stay for sunset, but my spidey senses put paid to that!

#landscapephotography
The sun begins to set over the jagged peak of Castell y Gwynt and a sea of cloud
November 20, 2024 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
kottke.org
I love these layered watercolor gradients from a series called Strata by Danish artist Mikael Hallstrøm Eriksen. They’re giving geology. [kottke.org]
Strata: Layered Watercolor Gradients
You know me, I love a good gradient. These watercolors are from a series called Strata by Mikael Hallstrøm Eriksen, an artist who uses “repetitive and accumulative mark-making” in his work. The works in the Strata
kottke.org
November 14, 2024 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
susiedentwords.bsky.social
Good morning.

Word of the Day is as beautiful as it is underused. ‘Confelicity’ is finding joy in the happiness and success of others.
November 14, 2024 at 7:43 AM
Reposted by Emlovesplants
mikeinoly.bsky.social
I love the rich color tones of 'Miss Aravilla'. 🌱
November 9, 2024 at 7:17 PM
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georgemonbiot.bsky.social
1. In our book The Invisible Doctrine, Peter Hutchison and I show how neoliberalism, by sucking the meaning out of politics, out of jobs, out of community and out of family life, paved the way for Trump. 🧵 www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748745...
Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot, Peter Hutchison: 9780593735152 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
#1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER • A “fantastic” (Mark Ruffalo), fiercely argued takedown of neoliberalism that not only defines this slippery concept but connects it to the climate crisis,...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
November 7, 2024 at 6:05 PM
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carlbovisnature.bsky.social
Dangly footed Puffin! 😀😍🐦
November 9, 2024 at 8:04 PM
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loujnicholls.bsky.social
It's aster season and I love it 😍
October 19, 2024 at 9:47 AM
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maudiestokes.bsky.social
Saturday
October 19, 2024 at 1:53 PM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Love the light in the garden this evening
October 19, 2024 at 6:28 PM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Harebells on Mam Tor this week #wildflowerhour
Small blue, bell shaped flowers.
September 1, 2024 at 7:06 PM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Lovely grass border at Ness botanic garden today with Austroderia richardii at the centre. Very elegant.
September 1, 2024 at 7:03 PM
emlovesplants.bsky.social
Aeschynanthus 'Hot Flash' on my windowsill.
Aeschynanthus 'Hot Flash' - a red flower backlit by a window
August 30, 2024 at 7:54 PM
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thomasetty.bsky.social
New to BlueSky & already feel welcome. Mr Etty is the UK's preeminent heritage seed company and purveyor of bespoke seed goods to a wide range of visitor attractions. Mr Etty will post interesting (we hope) snippets concerning the history of seed varieties, along with promoting his seed catalogues.
August 26, 2024 at 8:14 AM