After a dull, cold and windy week, temperatures are set to rise and we have been promised a mini summer next week, lasting for all of 3 days before rain will move in. I’m glad that it will get warmer, I was almost thinking I had to get my winter jumpers out already, but T shirts will last me a bit longer thank goodness. A lot of cutting back got done during the week and more weeding, will I ever get to the end of those!
My six for this week are….
No 1 Eupatorium purpureum atropurpureum.
Such a lovely huge plant, well over 6ft tall with huge purple flowerheads which the bees and butterflies adore. My photos were taken at 7.30 this morning and I think all the insects were still in bed!
This is the wild eupatorium, much smaller and paler in colour, a mere shadow of its relative, the insects still like it though. I usually go round pulling it out as I think it is rather weedy, but I must have missed this one!
No 2 Geranium.
This geranium weaves its way right along the driveway border. It was bought as G. Ann Folkard but I think it is G. procurrens. I pull at least half of it out every spring when it emerges after winter, but there is still plenty of it left by this time of year when it flowers.
No 3. Kniphofia Bees Lemon.
The flowers are going over too quickly for my liking, I wish they lasted longer.
No 4..Pig Nut
Pig Nut that appeared in the meadow for the first time this year, has suddenly appeared in the border, long after the ones in the meadow had finished, do I leave it or pull it out? The jury is out on this one, I’ll leave it for now.
No 5. Hydrangea paniculata Kyushu
Lovely paanicles on Hydrangea paniculata Kyushu, it does wait a long time before the flowers are fully open, but it is worth the wait.
No 6 Fuchsia Whiteknights Blush
I can’t sit on my bench at the moment otherwise I would squash all my flowers on the fuchsia bush. It has certainly had a good year this year.
There we have my six for this week. Thanks to Jon The Propagator for hosting, do pay him a visit to see what is happening in gardens around the world.
A nice selection which is beginning to look somewhat autumnal. Let’s hope you can keep the T shirts out a while longer!
The kniphofia is very nice. Anything other than orange is hard to find around here but I keep looking! I also wish they would last a little longer. Some of my newer ones do have a longer bloom season and it’s let me get rid of some of the others.
I hope the T shirt weather lasts a bit longer Frank, I’d much rather garden in the sunshine than cold wind! Over here we have quite a few Kniphofia that are not orange coloured , maybe I should try some newer ones and see if they flower for longer.
Lovely to see your yellow kniphofia Pauline. This is one of the fairly few perennials that do not manage the climate here. The Eupatorium is magnificent and I am grateful that it does very well here. Enjoy the mini summer!
I am enjoying our warmer weather Denise, it makes such a difference to garden in warm sunshine! The Eupatorium is such a huge plant now, sideways as well as upwards, I’m thinking I could split it when it has finished flowering and move some elsewhere. The yellow Kniphofia makes a nice change from the orange ones, but it is over much too quickly.
The eupatorium looks really striking, Pauline, but I am excited in a silly way to see what you call ‘pig nut’! It’s something that appears here but I had no idea what it was and my Mum’s copy of Keble’s Concise British Flora suggests all sorts of alternatives, including the poisonous fool’s parsley…! I am off to Google pig nut now, so thank you!
I got Pig Nuts name from Sarah Raven’s book of wild flowers Cathy, it’s proper name is Conopodium majus, but pig nut is much easier. It is widespread throughout the British Isles, usually found in acid pastures in areas of high rainfall, that’s my garden! I have just googled it myself and one foraging website says that eating the tubers is said to promote lust!! You have been warned Cathy!
I vote to keep the pig nut. What a stunningly beautiful hydrangea. I do hope you get your seat back soon while the sun still shines.xxx
The pig nut can stay Dina, for a while at least, as long as it doesn’t try to take over the border. Don’t worry, I have plenty of other seats that I can use, the fuchsia looks rather nice peeping through the bench, I would hate to disturb it! x
I wish I could share some of our hot drying sun with you. We have started to get cooler nights, thankfully, and there is some of that autumnal crispness in the air – finally! I would love a few deep, long, gentle rains. Fingers crossed!
Our sun has now gone Annna and we had rain overnight and I think it will stay for the next few days, the garden certainly needs it and my water butts need topping up, so then everything should be happy! I hope you get your much needed rain.