When we had all our visitors the other weekend, I was asked what the large snake was in the bog garden. Some time ago I planted out lots of Meconopsis seedlings at the back of the border, the following day I was dismayed to find that most had been pulled up and were just lying with their roots exposed.
Suddenly yesterday (Saturday) we were inundated with visitors, these visitors are not requiring any beds to be made up or cooking to be done, just as well as there are so many of them! When we had the heat wave last month, I can’t say that we were inundated with butterflies, but yesterday, in the hot sunshine, they were everywhere, flitting about from flower to flower, not settling at all, it was very difficult to photograph them! Today it is cool and raining and not a butterfly to be seen.
Tortoise Shell on Verbena bonariensis.
The month of July was unusual in that it was so hot and humid. Having to watch the garden suffer through the lack of rain and only being able to water the essentials that were obviously struggling did not make a happy month in the garden. Rain came just as the water butts were empty, thank goodness, and now plants that looked very stressed are now back to normal. Most of the colour in the garden has been from the day lilies and crocosmia, roses have come and gone so fast and generally just looked a mess as I wasn’t able to keep up with the dead heading, I’m catching up now.
Hemerocallis Stafford has been flowering its socks off since the beginning of July and will carry on for some time as there are so many buds still to come.
I’m late, I know, sorry, but we have been having the most wonderful time with our extended family over the last week. The 70th birthday celebrations which started in May with my husband’s 70th, then mine in June, have eventually come to an end. This last week we have had a big family “do” which included my nephew and his family over from Canada. For a few of nights we were sleeping 13! six were in a tent in the garden and seven in the house, at times it was chaotic but really wonderful, I enjoyed every minute of it. Back to earth now and I must catch up with all your blogs and gardens.
I was thinking that there wouldn’t be much foliage to photograph for this months foliage day as it has been so dry and hot, most of the plants were looking very sorry for themselves, but I managed to find some that were coping really well in the conditions that were right for them.
Crocosmia Lucifer leaves backlit by the sun.
My garden and I are feeling the same, hot, tired and wilting in all this heat, hoping that we can have some rain soon, just at night time of course! It’s well over 4 weeks now since we had any rain , all my water buts are nearly empty, even my huge one which holds 400 gallons! The flowers are going over so quickly and the colours fade in such hot sunshine, we are just not used to it here in England. One area that is carrying on as usual is the bog garden, obviously the plants are finding plenty of moisture further down in the soil. These are Primula florindae Coppertones.
I’ve decided that nature is the best gardener, she knows best how to do things, I think I will have to hang up my trowel and leave it all to her! Because of muscle problems, I have concentrated on trying to get the main garden weeded and organised. The fruit and vegetable garden has been sadly neglected. The fruit is fine, growing and ripening nicely, but the vegetable beds have certainly sprung a surprise on me. At the beginning of the year we emptied one of the compost bins onto each of the raised beds as a mulch, supposedly to keep down the weeds and this is what I found the other day.
In the back garden, the bowl of Freesias that I was given by friend Celia for my birthday, have been flowering their socks off and perfuming the garden for weeks now.
Where has the month of June gone, time is just flying by and I’m still playing catch up! We are gradually catching up with all the weeding, having neglected the garden somewhat for 2 yrs, while the medics were trying to decide what was wrong with my muscles. Now though, we are beginning to see our garden emerging from the weeds once more, thank goodness, as now, thanks to new medication, I can manage to do 2 hrs gardening each day, a great improvement on last year when I could only manage 20 minutes! With the under gardener matching me, hour for hour , soon it should all be ship shape again. In this review I will just concentrate on the two areas where I have been changing the planting. The first area is the slope behind the alpine scree.
The bog garden, which is formed by an underground stream, certainly comes into it’s own at the beginning of June when flowers start bursting out along the length of the border. There are all the colours of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, just not necessarily in that order, plus pink and white! The plants are mainly various varieties of candelabra primulas, plus a few other varieties, with iris, ferns, hostas, astilbes, euphorbia, rodgersia & meconopsis to keep them company. The first photo shows the left hand end of the border.
As well as all the beautiful flowers that are out at the moment, the foliage just gets better and better . Not just evergreens, golds and silvers, but there are purples, bronze, peach and lots of shades in between. Texture and shape of foliage also contributes to the tapestry effect, sometimes I feel that flowers are a bonus when the foliage is outstanding. This first photo is of the new foliage growth on one of the rhododendrons, so colourful, who would mind if it never flowered!
