Or if you prefer, daylilies aka Hemerocallis. They do only flower for a day, but there are so many buds on each clump now, that we can now say that they flower for a month. I find that they look a lot better if they are deadheaded every day or couple of days, a chore I know, but they do look a lot better for it.
H. Stafford
Hemerocallis Stafford was one of the first ones I bought as my parents were living in Stafford at the time. Continue reading
The large ash tree in the back garden is host to a white Clematis montana and also Rosa Wedding Day. The clematis was planted to mark our son’s wedding 10 yrs ago and the rose to mark our daughter’s wedding 15 yrs ago.
Clematis montana
The clematis didn’t actually climb very far before it decided to reach sideways into the next shrubs. The blossom does look nice though during May/June.
Campanula is a lovely family of plants. Some are bought by me, some are passed along by friends, some arrive on the breeze, some are well behaved, some misbehave and some are so good they are really welcome to stay as long as they like!
Campanula garganica Dickson’s Gold.
I’ll start with one that is so well behaved, a little golden leaved one called C. garganica Dickson’s Gold. It is on the alpine scree and I must have bought it about 10 yrs ago. It never seems to get any bigger, it doesn’t seed around and must like the conditions in the semi shade where it is. I have just read up about it and it prefers semi shade and doesn’t like hot sun, so without knowing it, I gave it the conditions it likes!
A couple of weeks ago, the last of the new permanent planting was done in the Sunset Border.
Planting all done for now.
Having a few photos that couldn’t be made into a post by themselves, I’ve put them together to make a mixed bag for June.
Each morning, at exactly the same time, I get a wake up call. Not from the clock radio, which starts with gentle classical music to ease me into wakefulness, no it is this fellow (why am I assuming it’s male?) a large baby bird which was sitting on the back lawn the other day.
Crow, rook or jackdaw?
The garden is now, in this month of June, filled with flowers of all description, but if we stop for a while, we can see that foliage still has a large part to play in the garden, even if it is in a supporting role.
Rogersia
My Rogersia in the bog garden, has now turned green from the beautiful bronze colour that it was a month ago, which I think is a shame. Even so, the large leaves contrast with the divided leaves of the ferns and astilbes planted around it. I’m going to have to move the Japanese painted fern from behind it as it is too small and can’t be seen properly.
Last Saturday we had the most amazing afternoon visiting a garden in Devon, or actually one garden was in Devon and the other, next door, was in Somerset! I found it in the Yellow Book for the National Garden Scheme. Not only was it two gardens, but there were sculptures and originally there was a railway line with the station buildings, that have now been converted into houses, somebody was a happy bunny and I don’t mean just me!
Entrance to Venn Cross gardens.
As soon as we stepped into the garden, we could tell that we were in for a good afternoon, the planting looked wonderful.
The weather this month has been very variable. Lots of very cold winds, coming from the east, a bit of sunshine which became very hot and humid a couple of days ago, coming up from Africa. Then it all went downhill with rain, thunder and lightning! In spite of all that, the flowers weren’t put off, they said it was June, so they were going to flower, no matter what the weather was doing, some of them are a bit battered, but they are still flowering.
Mdme Alfred Carrierre
The pergola is bursting into life with Rosa Mdme Alfred Carriere doing her bit. She has lots of flowers at the moment, simply because we forgot to prune her when we were going to the hospital each day, just didn’t have time to do the roses on the pergola. I think maybe we will just get the hedge trimmer to her in the autumn! Later in the year Clematis viticella Perle d’Azur will join in.
The Rhododendrons and Azaleas have been amazing this year. Usually we have a problem if the garden is too dry in the previous summer, the plants then abort their flower buds which means that we don’t have many flowers during the following May/June.
Azaleas and Rhododendrons
When we moved here 25 yrs ago, I didn’t know much about gardening, it has been a very steep learning curve and I’m still learning. We discovered that part of the garden never dries out, even in the summer when we occasionally have a drought. I soon learnt from talking to people in the village, that the farmers field, that is now our garden, was very wet in one corner.The farmer wouldn’t risk his new tractor there, so out came the horse and plough instead. So many people told me to drain the land before planting, but I tend to take the easy way out. Thank goodness I bought Beth Chatto’s books about her garden, there was all the information I needed, how to plant a bog garden.
Ferns and hostas
