September is the time when butterflies are frantically feeding on the flowers in the garden and the berries are forming which will keep the birds fed through the first half of the winter and gradually changing colour now that the cooler temperatures are with us at night time.
Painted Lady on Eupatorium maculatum atropurpureum, which I think is the best flower for butterfly food, it beats the buddlia next to it every time.
Starting to flower in August and making me feel that autumn is rushing in far too soon are beautiful little Cyclamen hederifolium. All of a sudden the woodland, which has been quiet for the summer months, is sprinkled with the white, deep pink and pale pink of their dainty little flowers. I don’t have quite as many cyclamen as snowdrops yet but the effect is getting there, they pop up in all sorts of places that I wouldn’t think of putting them, all thanks to my ants who spread the seed.
Seedlings come up in both colours.
Looking round the garden this morning, there are still plenty of flowers everywhere, but nothing that says Wow! I have been making plans for a late summer border for a long time, but so far nothing has been done about it, I think the time has come so that I have something special to look at at this time of year. In the meantime I’ll show you what is flowering at the moment.
I’ve been told that Eupatorium purpureum atropurpureum has changed it’s name, but I’ve forgotten it already! This is much smaller than it normally is, usually over 6ft tall, but only about 5 ft this year, probably due to our drought earlier.
We had been warned that our weather is going to be more extremes of everything and they certainly seem to be right. After 6 weeks drought with very high temperatures, we now have had almost non stop rain, some days it is torrential, but thank goodness it is also a lot cooler. The plants are looking a lot happier and hydrangea heads that were only half size last time I posted about them, are now normal size again.
Agapanthus are flowering all along the driveway border.
Thank goodness, we have now had some rain and the garden is looking a lot better for it. After such a long hot, dry spell with temperatures much higher than they should have been, the plants and I are much happier. The ground was rock hard so no weeding could be done, I have no excuse now! Wandering around yesterday, taking photos for today, I was impressed at how well the plants had coped without any rain, it must be my heavy clay soil! I’ll start again with my Yucca which is the star of the garden at the moment, but this one is on the other side of the steps onto the lawn at the side. This yucca has stayed as one plant, unlike the other which has split into 3.
My yucca glows with the sun behind it, you certainly can’t miss it when you come out of the back door.
After a month of very dry weather with temperatures that are far too high for me, the plants in the garden are, by and large, doing very well by themselves without any extra attention from me. This is just as well as lugging watering cans round to water my pots and recent plantings is enough, thank you very much. We had a little rain last night, along with lots of lightning and just a little thunder, but nowhere near enough and today we will be back to soaring temperatures again.
Yucca filamentosa is the surprise of the month. I planted it about 25yrs ago and this is the first flower that I have had inthe last 23 yrs! This plant has also split into 3 and another one has started flowering now.
July has been a very dry month, after a very wet June. I thought such a long time without any rain would have made the borders look dry and stressed by now, but I was wrong. Here in the SW we have only had 3% of our usual July rainfall, this is when I thank our heavy clay soil for keeping my plants going. Suddenly there was colour in all the borders from 3 families of plants, Crocosmia, Hydrangea and Hemerocallis. These aren’t the gentle pastel colours that had been in evidence in June, but the bright reds, yellows, oranges, purples, blues and white.
Crocosmias are thrusting themselves foreward and demanding attention, this is a lovely deep yellow one.
My two huge rambling roses, Mulligani, which is climbing up the dead oak in the centre of the garden and Wedding Day which is climbing up an old ash tree in the back garden, are flowering away at the moment, with flowers reaching up into the sky. They only flower for about a month, but are so worth it as they make such a wonderful show.
This is Rosa Mulligani, up the dead oak.
It is very hard in the month of June to limit the number of flowers to 10, but I will give it a go.
Best of all at the moment are the roses, they are flowering as never before and for the first time ever I have cut some for the house, but only because there are so many on Rosa Shropshire Lad. I felt the garden could spare them!
Shropshire Lad with Alchemilla mollis.
Where has flaming June got to, we have had nothing but rain and cold winds so far, it can only get better. However, even though the humans are not enjoying the weather, the plants don’t seem to mind at all, buds open and the flowers are lasting longer with it being so cold, definitely a plus. The downside is that the weeds are growing as never before and with it being so wet, I can’t get onto the garden to get them out! Come with me to see what is flowering today, but wrap up warm, it is so cold out there, I’m back in my winter jumpers!
Oriental poppies are flowering profusely, they have flopped a bit but that doesn’t really matter where they are.
Deb's Garden Blog – Journal
Diary of a Suburban Gardener