August is about to finish, where has this year gone ?
It’s been a strange and difficult month, struggling with pests in the garden and the unusually changeable weather. Some parts of the garden have thrived some have positively sulked.
Last year we were picking kilos of figs but this year we have had but a handful. The tree has made far too much growth and now this needs to be addressed.
Although looking very colourful the peony ‘Mollie the Witch’ didn’t set seed, usually I get lovely fat pods of shinny black seed. Still the pink infertile pod looks pretty.
It’s not been all doom and gloom, the Eucryphia has flowered it’s socks off giving me the most sugary warm perfume as I walked past.
Dicentra Scandens, grown from seed this year, has given me 3 plants all flowering and setting seed . This is the first time I have manged to get plants to grow and to see what the seed pods look like.
Early this year my sister in law Mary gave me a piece of her Hemerocallis ‘Court Magician’, not expecting it to flower this year I was surprised to get up one morning to find this. Quite an unusual colourway but one which will fit in nicely with maybe H ‘Gentle Shepherd’ and some low growing Dianthus…something for next year.
One plant that did sulk to start with this year is the Dahlia Purpssii, this doesn’t like too much heat or dry, so is now reaching it’s full potential, reaching 150 cms and nearly as wide covered with 8 cm single flowers that the insects love.
And finally it really does pay to cut down some perennials to get a second flush of flower. This is an unknown delphinium bought off the local market, always flowers beautifully and this year I did remember to cut it down and here it is blooming again…….and my favourite market stall has to be Stones on Victoria Market Nottingham.
With permission from the family of Stones I am putting this picture on to show how colourful and stunning the stall is.