Skunks about!

It's that time of year again! Skunk cabbage is rearing its head all around the ponds and watercourses - and in the beds too! Lysichiton americanum comes from western North American and is rather a weed here and in Argyll generally! It's escaped from gardens and established itself in wet places around the countryside.

We dead-head ours after flowering in an attempt to stop it spreading! We also grow the white species, Lysichiton camtschatcensis which is a native of the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia - and the ivory-coloured hybrid between them.