In places, the garden is suffering, when the rhododendron leaves hang down vertically, it is time to give some extra water. As I have mentioned in the past, we are on a water meter and have to pay for every drop of water we use, we chose to have a meter many years ago and our bills halved. Normally we can manage with just the water we have in the water butts, only the fruit and veg get watered with a hose, but when the weather is so hot and humid for so long, then plants begin to suffer as well as us! Some perennials have been cut down and I know that they will sprout again, they aren’t a problem, but when quite large bushes are gasping for a drop of rain, I have to react and out come the buckets. This is the time that rhododendrons and camellias will abort their flower buds, with the result we won’t have any flowers next spring, hopefully we have caught them in time.
Perfume on the breeze in the night.
Last week when we were having thunder and lightning after we had gone to bed, I woke with the noise and the lightning flashing round the room, someone else slept through it all! Even though the window was wide open, it still felt too hot with the curtains closed. I got up to open them and was greeted with the most delightful perfume which I recognised straight away, the honeysuckle over the arbour in the gravel garden at the back.
Foliage for July GBFD.
Thanks to Christina, we are now focusing on the foliage in our gardens. Flowers are everywhere and it is hard to focus on the leaves, but some of them are so beautiful, it is a shame they get overlooked in summer.
Alchemilla mollis always catches the eye after a shower of rain, or even a thunderstorm which we had the other night, complete with lightning.
July is the month for …..Day lilies.
More and more day lilies or Hemerocallis, open their flowers during the month of July. They bring such colour to the borders while the roses are having a rest before flowering again. They are so easy to grow and don’t seem to mind my heavy soil which is good. When I find something that likes it, I try to find any cousins of theirs that might also enjoy the same conditions, hence I seem to have gathered quite a few over the years, but can’t remember many of their names unfortunately.
This is a small one that is on the rockery by the alpine scree.
Red, White and Blue. G.B.B.D July
When taking photographs for July’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, it dawned on me how many flowers there were in the garden, in the British patriotic colours of red, white and blue. Crocosmia Lucifer has just started flowering up by the pond and takes the eye as soon as you step into the garden by the back door.
Backlit by the sun, some of the petals look yellow.
It can’t be 48 years!
It can though. Forty eight years ago today, there we were, young and innocent, getting married! We have just had a lovely day out visiting a garden in the Dartmoor area and then having a fantastic lunch in a nearby hostelry. The under gardener managed to find a super garden, Winsford Walled Garden, he did well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has been an historic productive garden from 1890’s but abandoned during the war.It has been recently restored and records show that it was formerly an exotic flower garden.
I could tell straight away that this was going to be a good one.
Not a flower to be seen, or not many.
In an area which doesn’t feature very often on this blog, are our fruit and vegetables. Even though this is in the highest part of the garden, before we changed it, it was also one of the wettest areas apart from where we have made the bog garden. This view is from right at the top, looking back to the pergola which leads back to the garden.
We soon realised that any root vegetables would just rot, therefore the under gardener had the job of making some raised beds before we could start. Continue reading
A wander round the garden. EOMV June.
When we used to open our garden for the National Garden Scheme, it was always in June that we opened it, as all the borders were putting on a display of flowers. Some areas peak at different times, like the woodland, but even so there is something flowering there. For this month’s EOMV I will go for a wander round the garden, photographing mainly long views, to show as much of the borders as possible. I will start by the drive in the front with the Bee and Butterfly border starting down by the gate.
The agapanthus and three buddlias are nearly out, so soon there will be lots of blue, pink and purple added to the other flowers.
Time to look up.
Usually looking at flowers involves looking down or even bending over to examine our treasures, but lately I have doing the opposite, looking high up into the tops of trees. First of all, up the dead oak in the middle of the garden, is Rosa mulliganii.
The Foliage in June is Hiding! GBFD.
Normally the foliage in the garden is so easy to see, so there is no problem when it comes to photographing leaves for GBFD hosted by Christina. This time though, it is flowers, flowers and even more flowers, I have had to go searching for foliage that could be thought a bit interesting.
Crocosmia Lucifer, by the pond, is just about to flower, but at the moment I enjoy seeing the sun shining through the sword shaped leaves, once the bright red flowers come, he just shouts for attention.
