Six on Saturday 27.08.2022

We have had a little bit of drizzle for a few minutes this week, but at least the temperature has dropped and I think that it is this that has made the garden feel a lot better, and the gardener! I started off last week with a photo of the Amelanchier tree in full autumn colour, this week it is bare, all the leaves have dropped and been swept away with the lawn mower. I spent one day sweeping all the horse chestnut and Acer leaves up that were on the back lawn and it looks a lot better. The horse chestnuts are now finished for this year, this has never happened in August in previous years. Surprisingly the roses seem to have recovered so I will start with a couple of photos of those…….

No 1

Rosa Graham Thomas is now covered again in lovely fat buds and has started flowering once more.

R. Brother Cadfael is now back into flowering mode once more. Lots of buds mean lots more flowers, thank goodness.

No 2

My white hydrangea under the kitchen window, Mme E Moulliere,has started putting out lots of much smaller new flowers, but they aren’t white as usual, they are all pale blue! Can anyone explain?

No 3

My Eupatorium maculatum atropurpureum is a faint shadow of its usual self. Usually 6ft tall x 6ft wide, this is its only flower spike for this year and at only 4ft tall. The bees and butterflies will just have to cope with the only flower that it has produced and this with the help of me watering it nearly every day!

No 4

The berries ofArum italicum marmoratum are making quite a show under the previously mentioned Amelanchier. The birds will spread the seed, so I have them popping up everywhere in the shade. This clump of variegated leaves is quite large now, maybe they need splitting.

No 5

Rose hips on a wild dog rose. This is a sucker of a climbing rose that has died, but has been left because it looked so pretty when flowering, looking lovely again now that it is covered with hips.

Rosa glauca’s second moment of glory. I love the tiny pink flowers in the summer but also enjoy its hips at this time of year when they make a lovely show.

no 6

Aster frickartii Monch which is the start of my asters flowering, hopefully they will continue for a while.

We seem to have had a little rain overnight but still not enough, I’ve been round tapping my water butts and they are still sounding hollow!

Thanks once again to Jon The Propagator who organises us all, do pay him a visit to see what is happening gardenwise around the world.

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14 Responses to Six on Saturday 27.08.2022

  1. Rosie says:

    Your roses are doing well for a drink of rain water. The Aster is a lovely colour too.

  2. Elizabeth says:

    I think that hydrangea color change is a pH related phenomena. The lab rat in me like the idea of a plant as a pH indicator. I think as usual, pink is more acid, blue is more basic, but I read that white flowers are not affected by pH, so who knows!

    • Pauline says:

      I agree Elizabeth that white hydrangeas shouldn’t be affected by the soil. In the 30 yrs it has been there, it has never had pale blue flowers before! Pretty though.

  3. Graeme says:

    Graham Thomas is a beautiful rose. That’s odd regarding the colour change of Mme E Moulliere’s flowers – although the pale blue is lovely.

    • Pauline says:

      Graham Thomas said “drought, what drought” and carried on as usual, but then Graeme, it is in the part of the garden that now floods every winter so maybe the soil there is still damp. I like the pale blue on Mme E Moulliere, usually it goes pink in the rain, but then, we haven’t had proper rain for such a long time!

  4. Denise says:

    Well I do wonder when you are going to get some decent rain Pauline. We are now getting it in large quantities thank goodness. Eupatorium does seem to be very moisture dependent. I see mine starts to wilt on a really hot day.

    • Pauline says:

      Other parts of the country are getting thunderstorms and flooding Denise, but just not us. All our rain seems to be dumped on Dartmoor then there’s nothing left for us! I’ve never had my eupatorium wilt before and always thought it was thanks to my heavy clay soil, maybe I will need to move it to where the garden gets flooded each winter!

  5. Cathy says:

    How do you get the dark background for your rose pictures Pauline? Don’t you just love a perfect rose bloom like these…? It has been interesting to here to note which things don’t seem to have been affected by the drought, as it appears to have been as much about the aspect as the soil. Still haven’t checked my amelanchier! What a good crop of hips and berries you have for your local birds. I do miss the leaves of the arum though…

    • Pauline says:

      The background for the 2 rose photos Cathy,is just the dark evergreen hedge behind them, by the field. My ancient trees are taking any moisture in the soil, no matter whether it is in the sun or shade, so shady borders are suffering just the same as sunny ones unfortunately.

  6. Such beautiful roses 🙂

  7. snowbird says:

    How lovely to still have roses and others beauties during this drought. The leaves are falling early this year too, how we will all adjust will certainly be interesting.xxx

    • Pauline says:

      I think we will all learn a lot from this summer Dina, although how we will cope in the future remains to be seen. Its not as easy as just planting drought loving plants, not when your garden floods in the winter, will have to wait and see what Monty Don will do!

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