Six On Saturday: Too much of good thing?

/ n20gardener

I do like magenta pink. But truth be told I think I have too much of it in the garden. Lupins, geraniums, roses, phlox, salvias and more. A re-think is needed. The August garden is a bit patchy but the joy of Six On Saturday is that I get to show you the close up and can gleefully edit out the scruffy surroundings. Here are three magenta joys and a few others to break up the glare!

One

R. Gertrude Jekyll.  I hesitate to show the magenta pink flowers as the colour can look even more garish in a photo.  The colour doesn’t look too bad today, the rose is surrounded by astrantia major and Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’.  The salvia is a looking a bit scruffy now but the astrantia soliders on.

Two

R. Madame Isaac Pereire.  An old rose new to the garden this year, and supplied by occasional sixer Thomas Stone.  It’s a repeat flowering old rose and is doing very well in its first year.  Thomas recommend it for its ability to soak up the sun in a south facing border.  I agree.

Three

This is one of my grown from seed annuals – Malope trifida ‘Vulcan’.  If only you could see the chaos surrounding it.  This is meant to be a combination of the orange calendula ‘Indian Prince’ and the cosmos ‘Double Click Cranberries’.  All sown a bit late, so only just getting going, all flopping and falling everywhere – really should sow earlier, should sort out some gentle staking, should water more, in fact, should do better! But with selective vision they all look wonderful.

Four

Also in the should do better camp are my nasturtiums in a sink.  These are not they.  The sink based nasturtiums have given up, gone to seed most likely for lack of water.  These are in raised bed, in partial shade and have managed to survive on the rain water that comes their way.  They also have more room to trail and all in all this is a much more successful planting space for them.

Five

My other dahlia grown in a pot.  I’ve paid these a little more attention, feeding them with seaweed extract more or less once a week.  This is dahlia ‘Furka’ one of the cactus group.  Which sounds as though I might know what I’m talking about, but no.  I am still trying to decide if there is a place for dahlias in this garden, having just spotted some rather lovely bright red ones at Ulting Wick garden in Essex.  I have a plan to visit for their next open day especially to see them.  But then again, is it more of the same colour palette?

Six

My agapanthus are in full flower now.  These are the evergreen variety that I have to fleece up every winter.  They are tall, with large flower heads and I grow them in pots.  There are currently five pots of them dotted over the patio and they look especially good in the early evening light when the colour seems to intensify.  They work very well with my verging on magenta pink pelagoniums.

More delightful colours can be found on Mr P’s site.  There you will also find the links to the other SOSers that post from around the world.  I’m off to do some thinking, weeding and watering.  Enjoy your garden this weekend.

26 thoughts on “Six On Saturday: Too much of good thing?”

  2. It is always a pleasure to have flowering agapanthus on its terrace.
    Very pretty flowers these Malope trifida ! I didn’t know and they must be perfect with the cosmos next door. Are they “able to be perennial “ ?

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  7. Your nasturtiums have interesting leaves. I am a bit jealous of your GJ – mine stopped flowering months ago! I think I need to be better at feeding my plants. And I don’t think you can have too much magenta, maybe just add some more yellow or orange for contrast.

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  10. If your agapanthus are the ‘evergreen’ variety, what are those that are not evergreen? I have always known agapathus, but have never met one that was not evergreen. They are very common here. With your nasturtiums and dahlias, they look so Californian.

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    • I’ve always wondered about the same thing! The other ones I have are shorter with narrower leaves. In winter they completely lose their leaves but re-emerge in the summer. Last summer I added a variety called midnight blue which is a smaller and later variety. I’ll do it for the next six.

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      • Well, there are smaller cultivars of agapanthus, but they should be as evergreen as any other agapanthus. Any of them can lose their foliage to frost, but it seems odd that some lose their foliage and others do not. Are the flowers blue, or ar they more lavender? could the deciduous agapanthus be tulbaghia violacea? They are evergreen, but more sensitive to frost.

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      • I found this on https://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/growingflowers/flowersandseasons/agapanthus The perennial Agapanthus grows from an underground rhizome each year.
        The tender Agapanthus africanus species is evergreen while the hardier Agapanthus campanulatus species, coming from moister, mountain grasslands, have slightly smaller flowers and die down during winter and re-emerge again the following spring. Also I gave you a wrong name. My new one is navy blue, synonomous midnight star – confused the two! I remember we had a discussion about elder and when I read this I was reminded of it http://digdelve.com/sambucus-nigra-subsp-canadensis-maxima/ I hope it is interesting for you, you might have to sign up to read it.

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      • The link describes more of what I know about agapanthus, so I looked up the name, and found that it describes a mysterious agapanthus that I saw at Filoli years ago but never identiied! How rad! The one I saw was very rich dark blue or maybe even purplish. It was too dark for my taste, and the florets on those I saw were pendulous on stems that were more vertical than I am familiar with. Thank you for forwarding this. Although I prefer to limit my agapanthus to the same simple blue that I have grown since I was a kid, and a comparable simple white, I may eventually get one of the dark blue hybrid cultivars if the flowers look like those of the blue and white ones, but in a richer color.
        The article about the elderberry is interesting too, but also a bit more confusing. As far as I know, that particular elderberry is of the species Sambucus canadensis, and there are a few cultivars of it. Sabucus nigra is a different species. Sambucus canadensis should not be a subspecies of Sambucus nigra. It is confusing because the name ‘nigra’ comes up a lot with other species of Sambucus. I really don’t know where one species starts and nigra ends.

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      • Oh, it explains that it is a Sambucus canadensis, which is more than I would have figured out. I just do not know what Sambucus canadensis is, if it is a species or a subspecies.

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  11. That’s one great dahlia. What’s your dahlia indecision about? My nasturtiums did awful this year, which is unusual, so wonder if it’s a year for awful nasturtium (completely ignoring that yours in the raised beds look beautiful because if I acknowledge that, I’ll have to admit that somehow, I’ve failed w/a plant they give children to grow). In my house, malope vulvan are referred to as trollops because of the colour combo – very burlesque – & we all love them to bits. Your roses are fantastic.

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