Volunteers or were they meant to be?

Earlier this year we were given a mixture of seed packets that came free with gardening magazines. We’ve had all sorts and usually just threw then in corners of vegetable beds or wherever there was a spare space.

Just by the raised beds at the side, there’s a mixture of a couple of cherry tomato plants and this (above). We put the photograph into Plant.id and found out it is a Common Mallow. We then looked at the Wildlife Trust website and they had this to say about it (here) “Certain parts of common mallow are edible (leaves, flowers and seeds) and there is evidence that the Romans may have deliberately cultivated the plant to be used for food and medicine.” It’s not a bad looking flower either and we are not going to pull it up for now.

We may have covered this before but the above (according to plant.Id) is buckwheat. This appeared from out of nowhere on a container by a fence/screen and it’ll be staying for this season we think. Wikipedia has told us it’s a pseudocereal and it is related to sorrel, knotweed and rhubarb. The things you find in your garden!

And here’s a great tune from Optimus Featuring Oskar Gudjonsson with Four Point One.

South London garden report – August 2025

Earlier this year we had a report from Rich R who had just returned from Sicily and sent us some photographs including one of a nice flower (above) that we had not heard of called lantana (more here).

The week after seeing the pictures we bought a couple of lantana plants off ebay, not sure what happened to the other one but here’s one of them. As far as we read it’s a perennial so perhaps next year it will look better. We’ve just read online that in some places they can be invasive and considered a noxious weed, blimmin’ heck on that note we’ll keep them in a pot.

 

The salvia we bought from B&Q  (above) is looking good, it’s getting the odd bit of comfrey liquid every now and again and a water if we see that the soil is bone dry around it. More on salvia care here.

 

And finally a shot of the cosmos under the dead tree. Do send us your gardening pictures and a song recommendation (if we like it we’ll post it up with the article but no Cliff Richard/Coldplay please as a refusal often offends). Have a good Sunday and enjoy this sunshine!