July should be hot, but not here, certainly not a flaming July so far! We have had mixed weather this month, a lot of cloud, some days warm, others a bit chilly, a little rain but not as much as I or my plants would like and a little bit of sunshine. The plants have carried on as normal and flowered away as usual, so let me show what I have flowering in my garden at the moment.
The hydrangea under my kitchen window.
Looking round the garden at the moment, it is very colourful in most of my borders. Thinking about it, most of the colour is coming from bulbs, tubers, corms etc as well as perennials. I’m thinking Iris, hemercallis, crocosmia etc. I’ll start with hemerocallis as they are providing most of the different colours at the moment.
While wandering round the garden recently photographing all the flowers for various posts, I couldn’t help but notice all the hostas that were doing so well and I thought it such a shame that I was the only person to appreciate them. I have so much shade in the garden so when planting up each shady bed I have automatically reached for hostas, ferns, astilbes and heucheras as the low level planting.
Hosta Great Expectations with a yellow heuchera which picks up the yellow in the hosta. Campanula has seeded itself there and is joining in. This area is a mass of snowdrops in February.
Where has June gone to, it is rushing by faster than ever before, I just can’t keep up with everything! There is so much flowering at the moment, it is difficult to choose what to show you, roses have already had a post all to themselves and I am trying to avoid any blooms that were shown in my last post on the 15th, so here is my offering for June 23rd hosted by Chloris.
I have poppies sprouting everywhere on the rockery where shrubs have been cleared away, dug over and compost added. Just ordinary purple ones, but never mind, they look lovely and I am really enjoying them.
Wandering round my garden yesterday showed that lots of plants have appreciated all the rain that we have been having recently and so have all the weeds, they are sprouting everywhere! Thank goodness my water butts are full again, I was getting a bit worried when we had non stop hot sunshine and a lot of recently purchased plants needed watering. One in particular that needed watering was a white peony.
Paeony Duchesse de Nemours, lovely flower and a delicious perfume.
I have quite a few photos that don’t fit into my usual headings, so they have made up a mixed bag for me.
How could I forget Mdme Alfred Carrierre when doing my post about roses, she was the first one in flower, brfore all the others!
One minute I’m surrounded by rhododendrons and azaleas, enjoying the perfume of the azaleas, the next I’m drowning in the scent of all my roses! I’ve never known the roses to be so early, one or two maybe, but they all seemed to be flowering before the end of May this year. So much colour all at once is quite amazing, I have the rhododendrons brightening up the shady side of the garden and the roses on the sunny side, going into overdrive.
Most of my roses are from David Austin and have been chosen for their perfume. This is Gertrude Gekyll.
One man came to mow……..came to mow my lawn. When he got here I told him that he only had half of it to cut this time. Wind back to last week, when Derek, my new gardener, phoned to say that he couldn’t come as he had hurt his foot by accidentally stepping in a rabbit hole while he was out doing his hours exercising.
The stars of the garden at the moment are the rhododendrons and azaleas. In full flower, they are so bright and colourful, some with huge blowsy flowers that demand attention. Others are more refined, the deciduous azaleas also quite often come with a delicious perfume which wafts round the garden. There is so much flowering at the moment, but the rhododendrons and azaleas make sure you can’t ignore them.
I make no excuse for starting my post with the same photo as my last post, this is my favourite rhodo at the moment. This is always the first rhododendron to flower for me. It was already here when we came 30 yrs ago and is still doing well. The buds start out very pink, it then becomes two tone white and pink and ends up cream.
What a wonderful month May is, flowers are bursting forth left, right and centre, old friends are coming back and it is lovely to see them all again, well I can’t see my real friends and family can I?! The rhododendrons and azaleas are amazing, flowering beautifully, so they will get a separate post later, they make the garden so colourful at the moment, enough to cheer anyone up in these strange times, but there is only me to appreciate them…sad!
This is always my first rhodo to flower, no name I’m afraid, this was here before I was.
