Blogging

Shortly after I came out to British Columbia in early 2006 I had a case of severely high blood pressure. It wouldn't have been fair to an employer for me to work for them until I got my health situation sorted out. I was on medications to lower the blood pressure and it took until early 2007 to find the cause. I finally went to a naturopath who found that a microscopic parasite was the cause for all this.

While getting my health in order, I took up blogging to share my photography. This way I wasn't wasting time and others got to enjoy the photos, not just me and those close to me.

In May of this year I had a mini-stroke cause again by severely high blood pressure. I may end up gong to the naturopath again since the specialist and other MDs can't seem to find the cause. This has only been a problem out here. Before that in Ontario, the blood pressure was only marginally high, not severely high like in BC.

Knowledge is good because being forewarned is forearmed!

All that said, enjoy this blog and all the photos I share with you.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Wide-leafed or Giant Bellflower

Back east in southwestern Ontario I had a home with a garden I maintained since the late 1960s. The home used to belong to my parents. I grew bellflowers in the garden in the back since the 1970s. These were the Wide-leafed or Giant Bellflower (Campanula latifolia) that spread easily around the yard. In fact, I found them growing in the cedar hedge row! I used to allow the seed heads to dry (brown) and then collect the seed in large mason jars. When they were young plants, it was easy enough to transplant them but once established, it was better not since they had long whitish taproots! They're easy enough to start from seed anyway. That's how I got my planting started back in the 1970s. The image above is from Wikipedia but I plan to check my own photos for some and post the best ones here. I grew other alpines, not just Campanulas! Note: This bellflower is native to central and southern Europe and is found as far east as Russia. There are 500 species of Campanula in the world. This is but one of them! - V

2 comments:

DeepBlue said...

Very beautiful blog. Thank you for taking the time to do all the research and sharing it all with us.
Very educational.
Hugs
Jon

Volker said...

As you can appreciate, much of that is based upon personal experience. There will be more! - V