The Queen's earrings ...

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… or Pendientes de la Reina as they call them in Spain! What am I talking about??? Some flowers that always make me think about ballerinas! Have you got it yet?

When we lived in Spain, in Cuenca. We used to live in a fifth floor flat (no lift!) & we had two balconies, one looked over the street & was accessed from the living room, the other was accessed through the kitchen. The first was an enclosed balcony as you were still inside the building & only had a railing over the street but the kitchen balcony was completely outside the flat, no protection from the sides – not recommended for anyone without a head for heights or with a queasy tummy!!!

We had a neighbour who lived one floor below us, on the fourth floor, on the left.The neighbour was an elderly lady who had lived there for very many years. She was suffering from the early stages of dementia (not Parkinson’s disease) & she loved to corner me as I came up the stairs to my flat. Although she didn’t grow any plants herself she was quite knowledgeable & often told me stories of plants. She also used to tell me of some of the popular Spanish names for plants. One which I particularly remember was the one that gives the title of this blog “Pendientes de la Reina” or The Queen’s earrings, for those of you who don’t understand the language of Cervantes!

What flower does that make you think of? Try thinking of a flower that is pendant or hanging. There are many of course but to cut a long story short I’m talking about our very popular Fuchsia! What lady among you wouldn’t like a beautiful flower like the Fuchsia as an earring? If someone were capable of creating such a pendant or earring it would make him a millionaire!

As you can imagine from the foregoing I grew these wonderful flowers on my balcony in Spain. Unfortunately I found they didn’t appreciate the Spanish sun as much the Geraniums did! I don’t have any photos of the Fuchsias growing on my balconies in Cuenca, (pronounced “Quenka” or “Kwanca”), unfortunately. Perhaps I didn’t take any as they did so poorly or I simply don’t remember – well we are talking about 1977 – 8! I have found a lot of photos we still conserve from that time as I’ve always wanted to conserve memories of fleeting flowers for later years. We forget so easily what they looked like!

Nevertheless I’m not going to harp on any more about that time but I wanted to share some of my photos from that time but principally this blog is to show of the wonderful spectacle of the Fuchsias I’ve grown this year! I’ve already uploaded some but I want to include more here.

I found some photos of the house where we used to live here in Huntingdon but not of the many standards I grew. Nevertheless I have a few photos of the two very first Fuchsias I ever grew as standards.

(Still haven’t got round to scanning them into the computer!)

Thalia has flowered really well in 4 of my 5 baskets but it hasn’t done nearly as well in the basket that an errant tomato chose for its home!

This year is the second time I’ve grown Swingtime. I had a plant a few years ago but lost it. I’d like to train it as a standard but I don’t think I really have enough room on the balcony for more standards.

I’ve had Beacon for some years now in the form of several 1m (3ft) tall standards. Thalia is a lovely deep dusky pink. It has wonderful long thin tubes that flare out at the bottom.

La Campanella is a real beauty. It has 100’s of small flowers & they look sooo good!

• 16 Dec, 2009
• 15 likes

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