Woodland Anenomes are one of my most favourite shade loving plants so it was a little cery  surprising to find absolutely MASSES and I mean masses and masses of them in Croatia.  My idea that they were probably endangered flew out the door and that A they were endangered and B they only lived in England!  I’d always thought of them as so utterly English.First of all we only saw a couple of glimpses of them on the road to Plitvice Lakes National Park.  Every time we saw them it was too dangerous to stop on the side of the road.  It was so frustrating as I so wanted to get a picture for my mother who adores them as well.  In the end we took a plunge up a farmer’s driveway and asked him if he didn’t mind if we took a walk in his woods. He looked rather bemused….

We were rewarded with not only lots of white Anemones but Pulmonaria as well, amongst other obscure woodlanders that you’d have to look the Dictionary up for.  We wandered about for ages and left with grins on our faces…

Only to find that one km down the road there were literally acres of them on each side of the road growing amongst the tree trunks, stuck in rocky crevices and all on the edge of the woods where they received a good dollop of sun for a part day only.  Further in, as the light was lost the drifts became sparse.

Woodland Anemones (Anemone blanda) are available in NZ  when they are dormant in autumn and winter.  Plant them in some good compost where they won’t dry out too much in summer and use lots of leaf litter if you can.  Mulch up those autumn leaves with the mower and spread over your bulbs – they’ll love that along with some ICAN Blood and Bone