Flowering currant

Not much time tonight, so I'll try to be brief!

The sorting still continues - we've now filled our large car with assorted rubbish and will take it to the tip tomorrow. I also need to find good homes for an assortment of vintage clothes (including a Bond Street 1920's dressing gown and a 1950's swimsuit with little pleated skirt). I thought I might try the costume department of our local theatre.

I took the dogs to a new part of the river today. The weather has been mild, but with strong, blustery winds. when I set out the sun was shining, but by the time I arrived the dark clouds had gathered again. I'd been hoping for some spectacular skies along the valley but somehow that didn't work out! I did get a few photos, including the shell of a tower mill and a pair of flying swans. If anyone's interested I've uploaded these to my flickr account.

Of course as soon as I got back to the car, completely windblown and with two exhausted dogs, the sun came out and stayed out for most of the rest of the afternoon. I was working at the computer when I saw this raceme of flowering currant in the front garden, highlighted by the sun against the conifer hedge and decided that would be my blip. I think it almost looks as though it's floating!

I found a description of this cultivar on a website called Paghat's Garden, excerpts of which are reproduced here:

The scientific name Ribes sanguineum means "bitter-tasting bloody one," though for flavor it's more bland than bitter, & the 'White Icicle's' blooms aren't blood-colored like the wild original.

This white-flowering form of the native northwest currant was first developed in Victoria on Vancouver Island. It is very likely the most beautiful of all the currant cultivars, its dangly blooms being larger than on the species. Apart from the possibility of aphids liking it, it is extremely hardy & disease resistant & easily grown from cuttings or seeds. It likes temperate weather about best of anything, but it is also extremely cold hardy & is an ideal shrub for more northerly climates too.

In March & April it is gloriously abloom.... White Icicle is sometimes regarded a "winter bloomer" because it blooms earliest of almost any Ribes cultivar, two weeks ahead of most red ones & even the red is already a last-week-of-winter bloomer. But in our garden 'White Icicle' is at its height the first two weeks of spring. Some people say the flowers smell bad; I find the odor grassy or weedy, which while not perfumy is also not unpleasant.

The blooms emerge when the leaves are mere whispers of their future selves, but last long enough that there are soon young leaves peaking all around the blooms. The flowers give way later in spring to blue-black currants that last clear to the end of summer.

Anyway, off to a talk very soon. Catch up with you all later!