I’ve had a spell of not gardening: either it was too hot or I was busy elsewhere. The UK Bank Holiday weekend offered up cooler weather and some precious time. The garden was looking scruffy and I thought I’d give an honest six this week showing it’s disarray. But this morning’s walk round revealed a few positives and I have been persuaded to look on the bright side. Here they are, mixed in with a some reflections on the less successful aspects of the garden.
One
The roses continue to push out new growth and are the mainstay of colour in the garden at the moment. This is ‘Madame Isaac Péreire’. Nearby there should be a pop of helenium ‘Short and Sassy’. Not a sign of it, eaten by the slugs in it’s first year in the garden. That’s heleniums crossed off the grow list.
Two
Sorry to be repetitive but not being a fan of dahlias I don’t really grow them. However I do recognise their valuable contribution to late season colour and so I try one or two here and there. This year’s trial was the orange flowering ‘David Howard’. I was going to kill two birds with one stone here, beautiful chocolate leaves giving me a break from green and ochre orange flowers for contrast. The aforementioned slugs got in first and nibbled down the top growth. The dahlias fought back and the foliage is lush, but as yet not a sign of flowers. I wait patiently, maybe they will come.
Three
The back border was newly planted this year with a selection of grasses and three persicaria polymorpha. The white frothy flowers are exactly what I had in mind, but the stems do not seem to be able to support the flower heads and I regularly find snapped stems languishing in amongst the froth. This is most strange as the description suggests it is a ‘bulky feature plant making strong stems’. Next year perhaps?
Four
Before the back border was planted up I used it as a heeling in space for various self seeders from the main garden. In one of those serendipitous moments this astrantia ‘Roma’ combined well with periscaria, survived the drought and has won a permanent place in the back border where I hope it will self seed some more.
Five
I’m definitely focusing on the positives in this photo. The hydrangeas are a sad scorched affair this year but with the help of a few showers of rain they have shown their resilience. There’s new growth to be seen and one or two heads of new flowers have appeared.
Six
Apologies for sharing more tomato photographs. The San Marzano in the greenhouse have been amazing this year. I was extravagant and bought new seed, then planted the seedlings in a new bed on the other side of the greenhouse and focused my watering attention on them. We’ve been eating them for a few weeks and have also frozen a batch of cooked up passata.
Oh the joy of selective photographs, my scruffy gone-to-seed garden offers up some gems and I can put together a positive viewpoint. My mind is racing with plans to replant certain areas and I have been sowing seed of echinacea pallida and e. ‘White Swan’ in preparation. I have not ordered any spring bulbs and have no plans to. Those late offers may tempt me of course but for now I am reviewing what I have and looking at how to rework plants to better advantage. It all begins again, another year, another chance.
For more gardening thoughts take a look at The Propagator’s site, he’s not in this week as there is another mammoth run to be completed but as always the links to other SOS posts will appear over the weekend. Happy reflections on your gardening year. I will soon be collecting the juice from this year’s apple crop. That’s one for next week already in the bank.
A persicaria – labelled as ‘pink’ so I can’t add any further information. It goes some way to my getting persicaria into the garden but I am on the hunt for some of the dark red ones. I planted it next to the salvia ‘Blush Pink’ bought earlier in the summer and I hope they will be happy soul mates.
I singularly failed to record the other great gardening activity of the weekend which was the apple picking. It was a smaller crop this year, both in numbers of apples and size. Some were little bigger than a golf ball but as they all go for juicing they were all picked. In about a week I will know how many bottles this year’s harvest produced. The bent double apple tree of a few weeks ago is now nearly horizontal so I took a picture of that!
Every week I think about including this Cleome ‘Senorita Carolina’ in the six but for some reason it stays on the sub’s bench. This week it makes it into the team. I really don’t know why it has taken me so long, it’s been flowering like this all summer. The real colour is slightly less vibrant than captured here. It’s a tender plant so if the winter is anything like last year I shall probably lose it.
Just coming into flower is the Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’. Earlier in the year its poor leaves were scorched by the sun but as the season moves on it’s site is more in the shade where the splash of white shines through.
Given the size of the apples this year I was surprised and impressed by the persimmon fruits. They are much larger than last year and although I am not a great fan of the fruit I do enjoy their orange colour as they ripen in November.
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