Thanks to Christina, we are now focusing on the foliage in our gardens. Flowers are everywhere and it is hard to focus on the leaves, but some of them are so beautiful, it is a shame they get overlooked in summer.
Alchemilla mollis always catches the eye after a shower of rain, or even a thunderstorm which we had the other night, complete with lightning.
More and more day lilies or Hemerocallis, open their flowers during the month of July. They bring such colour to the borders while the roses are having a rest before flowering again. They are so easy to grow and don’t seem to mind my heavy soil which is good. When I find something that likes it, I try to find any cousins of theirs that might also enjoy the same conditions, hence I seem to have gathered quite a few over the years, but can’t remember many of their names unfortunately.
This is a small one that is on the rockery by the alpine scree.
When taking photographs for July’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, it dawned on me how many flowers there were in the garden, in the British patriotic colours of red, white and blue. Crocosmia Lucifer has just started flowering up by the pond and takes the eye as soon as you step into the garden by the back door.
Backlit by the sun, some of the petals look yellow.
It can though. Forty eight years ago today, there we were, young and innocent, getting married! We have just had a lovely day out visiting a garden in the Dartmoor area and then having a fantastic lunch in a nearby hostelry. The under gardener managed to find a super garden, Winsford Walled Garden, he did well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has been an historic productive garden from 1890′s but abandoned during the war.It has been recently restored and records show that it was formerly an exotic flower garden.
I could tell straight away that this was going to be a good one.
In an area which doesn’t feature very often on this blog, are our fruit and vegetables. Even though this is in the highest part of the garden, before we changed it, it was also one of the wettest areas apart from where we have made the bog garden. This view is from right at the top, looking back to the pergola which leads back to the garden.
We soon realised that any root vegetables would just rot, therefore the under gardener had the job of making some raised beds before we could start. Continue reading
When we used to open our garden for the National Garden Scheme, it was always in June that we opened it, as all the borders were putting on a display of flowers. Some areas peak at different times, like the woodland, but even so there is something flowering there. For this month’s EOMV I will go for a wander round the garden, photographing mainly long views, to show as much of the borders as possible. I will start by the drive in the front with the Bee and Butterfly border starting down by the gate.
The agapanthus and three buddlias are nearly out, so soon there will be lots of blue, pink and purple added to the other flowers.
Usually looking at flowers involves looking down or even bending over to examine our treasures, but lately I have doing the opposite, looking high up into the tops of trees. First of all, up the dead oak in the middle of the garden, is Rosa mulliganii.
Normally the foliage in the garden is so easy to see, so there is no problem when it comes to photographing leaves for GBFD hosted by Christina. This time though, it is flowers, flowers and even more flowers, I have had to go searching for foliage that could be thought a bit interesting.
Crocosmia Lucifer, by the pond, is just about to flower, but at the moment I enjoy seeing the sun shining through the sword shaped leaves, once the bright red flowers come, he just shouts for attention.
It’s difficult to know where to start, there are so many flowers all vying for attention this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I think I’ll start in the front with some oriental poppies in the Bee and Butterfly border.
This one is such a pale pink, it looks quite ethereal.
Twelve months pass by far too quickly these days and another birthday has been and gone! Thursday last week dawned bright and sunny and the weather forecast promised us a dry and windy day. Having looked at the National Garden Scheme website, we found a garden just over the border into Dorset that sounded rather good, so off we went, having first booked in for lunch near the garden before we left home.
This was the view that greeted us, everything looked so pristine, no weeds to be seen at all, the edges of the lawn were so crisp, not a leaf out of place.
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