#fuchsia

Six On Saturday: Disaster

/ n20gardener / 22 Comments

Let’s get straight to the point. Last Sunday a sudden and un-named storm hit the garden. The sky darkened, lightning flashed, thunder roared, rain stormed and winds swirled. It was impressive. We watched with amazement and then closed the curtains and settled down. The next morning disaster was revealed. Several large branches had been ripped from our neighbour’s tulip tree, some 20 metres away, and had been hurled into our garden. One was a direct hit on the greenhouse. Yes, the same greenhouse that only last week had been repaired. The newly rehung door stood smugly in place looking onto a scene of devastation. One branch of the tree was hanging on through the roof and back of the greenhouse. Large pieces of glass and tiny diamond like shards were scattered inside the greenhouse and outside throughout the gooseberry patch. Another large branch had just missed a young apple tree and the recently planted miscanthus. Miraculously it had only flattened some phlox which I am sure will survive. Clearing up the debris of the branches was relatively straight forward, although there are still four or five smaller limbs to deal with. The glass is another matter. What a pane it is! (Pun intended.) The frame has been distorted beyond repair. Project new greenhouse is back in play. Of course a slide show of the scene is number one of this week’s six.

One

The offending tulip tree is a rather striking tree. It is probably at full height and at this time of year is a glorious golden colour, a fabulous tree to be able to borrow. Locally the storm has been described as a mini tornado so I am hoping that this is a freak accident. For a brief moment I considered no greenhouse, then a polytunnel or a small tomato greenhouse but today I’m coming down on the side of a new greenhouse.

Two

In other news, the fig tree is delivering its second crop figs and this year it is quite a good second crop.

Three

I’ve tried a few times to grow nerines. You would think it would be simple. Buy bulbs, plant them and wait. Maybe the squirrels have them. Last year I planted a few in a pot so I could keep an eye on them. It sort of worked. I have one lovely flower.

Four

Honestly, I am not a dahlia fan but you could be deceived into thinking I was. I do like these. They are last year’s cacti dahlia, grown from seed and left in the ground to overwinter. They are looking pretty good now after a slow start in the dry summer.

Five

Six On Saturday is a great discipline for paying close attention to the garden. Without it I don’t think I would have really noticed the delicate white flowers of the ‘Hawkshead’ fuchsia. It’s a new addition and is currently nestling in amongst agapanthus leaves, almost hidden from view. There’s a few years to go before it achieves it’s final height of about a metre, then it should be a good focal point in the border.

Six

The roses are still blooming. I was thinking about their longevity and I put some of that down to the two feeds a year that I give them. One in March and the second sometime in July when the first flush is over. This one, which I may have featured already this autumn, is ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’. Forgive me, it was such a wonderful red colour I couldn’t not include it again.

Jim of Garden Ruminations is collecting the SOS gang together and sharing the first of his wonderful camellias this week. I will be back to picking up glass, gathering leaves and wondering where to store the scented leaf pellies until the new greenhouse is installed. The smaller potting greenhouse could be very crowded this year.

Six On Saturday: Blue sky thinking

/ n20gardener / 9 Comments

There’s a chill in the air and it’s a bit blustery but the sky is a brilliant September blue. Uplifting, encouraging and inspiring. Somehow it is this time of year that seems to be the best time to think about plans for the garden. I’ve been tidying up this week: courgettes culled and tomatoes collected in for ripening – the missing door on the greenhouse has pushed me into action a little earlier than usual. There has been just about enough rain to soak down a few more centimetres and encourage more flowers but the garden is still on the dry side. Here’s six for this week.

One

Whilst dahlias are the order of the day for this time of year, here it is the roses that are putting on a show. This one is a climber, one of the David Austin English roses, James Galway.

Two

And nearby another David Austin rose, Natasha Richardson. In previous years these roses have pushed on well into November.

Three

Another stalwart of late summer is salvia ‘Amistad’. I hope you will accept this slightly abstract version of the flower, the best of several blustery shots. This has been in flower for some time but it seems at its best in the autumn months, again lasting through until the frosts.

Four

This fuchsia is another late summer bloomer. An unknown variety, this one overwinters well but of course has gall mite. I nip off the affected parts and it battles on.

Five

The anemones that suffered so much in the summer heat have proved resilient and ‘September Charm’ that was flowering at the end of July suddenly looks much happier in the cooler temperatures.

Six

This hardy geranium is enjoying a second flowering. Lovely crinkly papery pink flowers of the bloody cranesbill, geranium sanguineum var. striatum, such a severe name for so delicate a bloom.

I’m thinking about a new greenhouse, there is a new rose to order and I have a new shrub to plant out. I’m going to sow green manure seeds on the veg patch and I have a tray of echinacea ‘White Swan’ that have been grown from seed. They have grown on well over the summer and the root system looks strong enough to cope with planting out in the big wide garden. Much to be getting on with then. Please take a look at other SOS posts as tended by The Propagator. And of course, enjoy your gardening.

Six On Saturday: September sunshine on its way

/ n20gardener / 17 Comments

There’s a week of good weather forecast which will lift everyone’s spirits. It’s a positive start to Autumn and I’m happy to say goodbye to that wet, grey thing that was optimistically called Summer. I’m adjusting to a new season and starting to forward plan. I’ve found a new (to me) variety of onion (Centurion) and an early potato (Cherie) to try out, I have good intentions to invest in some solid plant supports and for adding one or two more upright perennials to the border. Bulbs have been ordered and seed catalogues will be picked over. Even though Summer has wound down, there are one or two treasures in the garden to enjoy. Here are my choices for this week.

One

I had plans to plant a ‘Hawkshead’ fuchsia down at the far end of the garden and put in an order for one early this year. The nursery told me that they had had a poor start to the season and their plants in the polytunnels were a write off. They offered me a free twig of the fuchsia in with the rest of my order and I accepted. Six months on from its arrival it has been repotted twice and is flowering quite beautifully. I only hope that I can get it through the winter and then through another year or two before it becomes a properly grown up shrub!

Two

This is echinacea ‘White Swan’, a favourite of mine. I also have a couple of plants grown from seed that I hope will catch up with these purchased plants soon. I’ve sown a few more seeds this year, but just as I liberally covered them with vermiculite I re-read the sowing instructions – ‘Do not cover, needs light to germinate’. Have you every tried looking for seeds in vermiculite? Not recommended!

Three

I planted out some salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’ last year to fill up a space at the base of a climbing rose. So far these beautiful salvias haven’t quite climbed high enough to clothe the gap but I do like them. Maybe next year they will get a bit taller.

Four

And speaking of salvias, how about this for a surprise? I lost my main collection of salvia ‘Amistad’ over the winter so the ‘Darcy Bussell’ roses have been without their usual companions. This one is from a cutting I took two years ago and which also didn’t look like it was going to come to anything this year. It has suddenly shot up and produced flowers. I’ll try to get a couple of cuttings again for insurance.

Five

Not a treasure to enjoy but something that must be dealt with. There is always a problem corner in the garden and this is my current one. The rodgersias at the back failed to flower this year, most of the zinnias planted here fell prey to the slugs and although the fleabane looks happy it is camouflaging one of my most hated weeds – the cinquefoil. It sends out runners at an amazing speed and now has a strong grip on this corner. I pull it out as best I can but the plan is to dig out everything and try to take out every last scrap of cinquefoil too. I’ll do my best.

Six

The roses keep going and this deep magenta one is lovely and has a great scent. It’s ‘Madame Isaac Péreire’, a repeat flowering Old Rose. It doesn’t put out flowers all summer but after its first flush it starts again around now. It has the potential to be a mighty shrub in a couple more years, which will hopefully mean more flowers and more scent.

The Propagator hosts this meme and has kindly produced a participant guide in attempt to keep us all in good order, Take a look at the rules, then take part, the rules can be bent gently if you need to. Posts come in from all around the world so there is always a steady supply of garden colour.