The soft scent of the roses greeted me as I walked down the path to collect this week’s photos. Yes, summer is arriving and it is time to enjoy what is on offer. I still have work to do and ridiculously, given the dry weather, I have new plants to find homes for. Here’s this week’s collection.
One
The climbing rose ‘Blush Noisette’ is covering the wall with small blooms and buds. This is a three year old plant and it is just about reaching its predicted spread of four feet. It is billed as having a a rich musky clove scent, which is not so apparent, but it does flower generously.
Two
Geranium psilostomen is just opening up, I bought this two years ago from the Finchley Horticultural Society (FHS) plant sale and the following year bought three more. They are fabulous for a statement geranium, tall and covered in masses of magenta flowers with black centres. They grow to 1.2m and are pretty much self supporting although I do stake one side of this to keep it up off the path.
Three
Antirrhinum majus ‘White Giant’ F1. I am so proud of these because I grew them from the tiniest of seeds last year. They flowered well last summer and have over wintered and flowered even more vigorously this year. They are annuals so I seem to have been very lucky to have them come through again. I don’t think they are self seeders. I have no idea how this has worked but I am thoroughly enjoying them.
Four
This week I made a start on one of the most terrifying jobs in the garden. Cutting back the flower stems of euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii. They are just beginning to produce seed and are dominating the border so it’s time to cut them down and give everything else some extra space. The foliage left after the flower shoots are gone continues provide some useful structure. The white sap drips everywhere and can cause skin irritation so I tackle this job very carefully. One down, three more to go.
Five
All is not as it should be in the north facing border. I am still trying to track down the melica plants – I think I may be on to something but I have to wait patiently for another week before I know for sure! In the meantime the 25 geranium sanguineum ‘Album’ are just beginning to flower and there are interlopers. At least one so far but judging by the leaf I think there may three more. I do like the new geranium but it cannot stay here in the clearly designated ‘white plants for deep shade’ space. Well, not for long.
Six
Last weekend I was helping out at the FHS plant sale. I came back with a good haul of plants, some small and delicate for the half-thought out alpine corner and some more statuesque. These two tall ones are veronica, pink and salvia microphylla var. microphylla or blackcurrant sage. I must have a corner for them somewhere.
My fellow sixers will be sharing their gardens and all the links are collected together on The Prop’s blog. Mr P does a sterling job of running the show for which we are all most appreciative. Look no further for inspiration and helpful advice. That’s enough sucking up, time to enjoy the garden.
I garden in London and so get a little complacent about frosts. But this week the lawn has had a light frosting and it was clearly a sign that cold weather gardening had to start. Last year’s fleece was in shredded tatters in the shed and I hate all those white flaky bits. I hot footed it to Homebase and found some delightful green bags of 35gsm fleece with very handy draw string pulls. I usually fleece up the agapanthus armed with a stapler but these jackets were easy to pull over the plants and the fetching shade of green is slightly less obvious than white. Job done.
I was certainly lulled into complacency by the balmy days I experienced in Suffolk last week but the cold evenings are changing the colours of the garden. The persimmon tree is looking beautiful even as the leaves are falling.
The previously sun scorched hydrangeas are also taking on their winter hue.
But elsewhere the summer container plants are still in good health and I will leave them out throughout the winter. In mild years I have been able to carry the geraniums over into the next summer.
The white antirrhinum sowed from seed is still in flower at this end of the garden but elsewhere I have collected seeds from another plant that has done its bit for summer.
I recently planted out some gaura and pennisetums in a west border and alongside them I put in some Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’, which still thinks there’s time to put on a display. Thank you!
Cutting back plants after flowering really can work. The alchemilla mollis which were sheared to the ground have come through again and at this time of year they look beautiful with their dressing of early morning dew.
This is Geranium ‘Brookside’. It roamed through the garden in early summer, knowing no boundaries and so cutting it back when it finished flowering caused me no stress. The plant needed to be tidied up. This week I noticed it was flowering again.
Also starting up again are the seedlings of Nigella, love in a mist. I have a carpet of them which I should probably be thinning out and sharing around the garden. But I might just leave them all here to keep the weeds down and see how they come through next year.
In the greenhouse I have managed to keep a tray of foxgloves and echinacea pallida seedlings alive and it looks like some potting on needs to be done. Temperatures are on the up next week so they I hope they will put on some good growth once moved into a pot.
Encouraged by the good example of others I decided to try some winter vegetables. I rescued a tray of rainbow chard and perpetual spinach from certain death and planted them out a few weeks ago. The pesky slugs made straight for them but they have pulled through and growth looks good.
Last November I planted out bare root roses in a new border and Darcy Bussell is still flowering. I am impatiently waiting for the roses to become fully established but even in the first year the flowers have been rewarding.
The first stage has been completed. The grass has been turned in on itself and will miraculously turn into loam. I know, optimism. It will soon be buried with a mixture of topsoil and mulch which will prevent regrowth and suppress weeds. Even more optimism. These ideas have been taken from the ‘no dig’ principles advocated by Charles Dowding. I hope they will work. There is a deadline for the work to be completed as the new rose and the tulips need to be planted during November. Next post coming soon then!
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