We have had mixed bag of weather as well as a mixed bag of photos this last week. Temperatures ridiculously high for a few days, then quite hard rain last weekend, followed by more very high temperatures. Today should be the last day of this latest heatwave, cooler weather will be following on with more rain forecast for this coming weekend. So far the garden is coping well, this is when I am thankful for our heavy clay soil where the plants can dig deep for moisture.
I’ll start with something that looks to me like an alien from outer space.
Or maybe a tiny bunch of bananas!
Nothing more sinister though than my Phormium Yellow Wave in the back garden, which has decided to send up a few flower spikes.
Saxifrage stolonifera is brightening up the rockery in various places, I hadn’t realised that it had spread so much.
Its almost Hydrangea time, this one is in the corner of the back garden and is always the first to show its beautiful blue colour.
A few days later this is how it looked.
Rosa glauca has only just opened her flowers, she wasn’t in time for my rose post last Wednesday. It is a lovely little single rose with the most beautiful leaves.
While wandering round I noticed that the hostas weren’t doing too badly, in fact they were looking quite good despite a lack of rain.
My special candelabra primula is still flowering, getting taller and taller, soon it will run out of buds to open. I thought to start with that it was going to be sterile, but now the seedpods are swelling and hardening so I will be able to sow them and see what turns up. I know they won’t be the same, I will have to split it to make more of the same, but you never know, something interesting might turn up.
Putting up a good show of flowers is Clematis Etoille Violet climbing up into the myrtle tree by the dead oak.
I must have liked it so much that I bought another one, this one is on the pergola leading to the fruit and veg.
Lovely double Geranium Summer Skies in the border round the dead oak.
On the pergola is Trachelospermun asiaticum and at this time of year the perfume stops me in my tracks as I am whizzing past, it is gorgeous!
Rosa mulligani up the dead oak is certainly early this year, it is looking amazing already and we are still in June, it always used to flower in July.
The other photo shows the flowers that face the sun, but there are just as many round the back which only gets the evening sunshine.
The plants seem to be shrugging off the heat. We’re back in high temps today after a few nice days. Clematis Etoille Violet is lovely.
I think the plants are coping because they can still find moisture deep down Susie, but we do need rain! Clematis Etoille Violette is very generous with her flowers.
So much variety there Pauline, truly a mixed bag! The flowers on the Phormium really are unusual. I never seem to get so many flowers on my Clematis. I probably prune them at the wrong time. I hope you get the much needed rain! That little geranium is just lovely by the way.
I grow mainly viticella Clematis as the pruning is so easy, you just cut them all down about February time here, to about 2 ft from the ground, or to where you see the lowest bud! Rain is forecast from the south, but whether it hits us is anyones guess! The flower on the pale blue geranium may be small but the flower stalks grow to about 3ft!
The weather certainly is weird! Those temperatures almost finished my garden off. What a delightful collection of plants. I do love a blue hydrangea, they always turn pink in our sandy soil.xxx
I’m so glad that it is cooler now Dina, there were a few days when I was just melting! Strangly the hydrangea next to the blue one has stayed pink for over 20 yrs, you would think the soil would be the same in the same area but obviously not.x