Some late colour and another Gift

Just taking this opportunity to write a post. It’s Granddaughters day, so after printing on t’shirts this morning and helping to lop some wayward branches off the Medlar, Mr Malc has taken the girls to the allotment to get them off their screens !

So with a little peace and quiet I thought I would show a few more pictures of the garden.

The Apricot has started to bear fruit. After a very good start with the blossom, then the June drop, I have ended up with about  a dozen apricots. I am quite pleased with this, they are large, looking ripe but not quite.

After our trip to N’ Wales and our stop off at Crug Farm Plants we arrived home and I couldn’t wait to find homes for some of my treasures. This one being Roscoea purpurea f. rubra Gurkha RedStem, I don’t think I have ever seen a red Roscoea before and it is going to be quite a strong plant.

These are the fattening buds of Bomarea boliviensis , this is a non climbing bomarea with pink and green trumpets. I will post a picture as soon as they open properly. Crug Farm Plants.

Gladiolous Papilio ‘Ruby’. Bought in 2012 from Elizabeth MacGregor, when planted it immediately broke into lots of small bulbs, so this is the first time they have been mature enough to flower. Boy what a stunner, it was worth the wait. Several stems and still lots of immature bulbs.

Now I’ve always had a liking for Thalictrum and when in flower whatever the type I can never pot enough up to sell. This is a new one for me, it being a very large flower, Thalictrum delavayi BWJ7770. Grown from seed collected by Bleddyn Wynn – Jones in 2000 from Yunnan China. Crug Farm Plants.

This is one plant I would love to see seed around.

This is another Thalictrum from Crug 2013. A very tiny flower short well branched deep purple stems, looking very stiff compared to any other I have. Thalictrum BSWJ4946.

Last Sunday I had a walk with Mr Malc to the allotment, I was really pleased I did, nearly every plot that was cultivated had some kind of flower or flowers growing on it.

A very colourful walk.

Mr Malc’s sunflowers ‘Black Magic’ doing very well thank you, I’m growing these at home and they are about as thick as a garden cane… 😦

Some extra tomato plants were put into the pepper house and are doing really well, Marmande. We have been cropping tomato from the other greenhouse for a month or more.

The peppers are also doing well, we just need a bit more sun to ripen them.

Cabbages, Kale and Brussels sprouts are looking the best we have seen for a few years now, no sign of club root.

And the sweet corn ! That’s a crop we are really looking forward to.

Now at home I grow a few measly Cosmos, but here we have ten, yes ten plants. I have had bunches and bunches bought home for me for at least six to eight weeks now. So I won’t bother growing them at home anymore.

This is my little plot that I put some bi-annuals in earlier in the year. These were all grown from seed this spring so  no -way was I expecting any of these to flower before I lifted them for next year, but here we have Delphinium, Hollyhock and Lupins. So do you think they are worth lifting next year or do you think I am wasting my time and they won’t flower again ? Who knows….

Now this is our gift. Our neighbour has a friend who was clearing his parents house out. Apparently they were bigger hoarders than me, so when asked, would we like one of three benches that they had found in a shed, we said ‘mmm let us think’…no we didn’t, we said yes please and after a quick clean and a rub down, a spot of black paint on the rivets and legs we have a very nice bench. Thank you Mr T’s friend.

Here’s hoping for a bit more sun to ripen all of our fruit and veg and whatever you are doing in your gardens at this time of year, please take time out to sit on your bench and take in all the beautiful sights and smells….. Sue

Specials

I don’t know about you but my garden seems to have flushes of one colour. We have had a blue/ purple theme, then the roses came out and it was decidedly pink not my favourite colour at the best of times. This is now my most enjoyable period in the garden, this is when most of my ‘specials’ start to do their thing. Eucomis are budding up, the dierama are sending forth their beautiful, if fleeting, wands and the Roscoea have opened their first flowers. I love the exuberance of the garden at this time of year but sometimes you get overpowered by all around you. So it’s good to have a special corner where all these smaller more delicate looking and less showy plants can be seen more clearly. This has always been known as my White Garden, but over the years soft yellows and purples and blue have crept in, along with hips and berries in shades of red and orange in the autumn/winter. I have a plaque above one of the gates to this area and it says ‘secret garden’, the girls call it this but I still think of it as my white garden …. old habits etc ….

Along the boundaries are the Hydrangea paniculata, Roses Navada, Iceburg, Ginger Syllabub and Veilchenblau. These are filled out with various lost label clematis. This makes this tiny space quite secluded and private. I can sit in here with a cuppa and feel quite relaxed. It’s especially nice when the sun is setting and the birds are singing their bedtime songs. Here are a few plants that are flowering at this time.

Dierama ‘Guinevere’ a beautiful pure white flower reaching just a metre tall. This is one of several different Dierama I have, most grown from seed.

I might need a bit of help with the ident’ for this. A campanula I presume but again no label but I like it’s lush leaves and really large pendulous flowers.

After R’ Veilchenblau has finished the honey suckle and a seedling clematis take over.

Clematis Integrefolia Alba looks stunning growing through low perennials.

Romnya coulteri. Not growing in this area at the moment but at the end of the year this will be moved to a new spot.

This plant was only bought from Elizabeth Macgregor two years ago and has already reached two metres plus. So I have cleared a large space for it the White Garden.

Anemonopsis macrophylla a very beautiful choice plant loves the cool shade of the W/G. Only growing to 60 cms.

Lots of Primula florindae have seeded around the damp area and the perfume is wonderful. Some have now seeded a soft orange but I will leave them here as they compliment the yellow.

This florindae is fasciated, the stem is almost two cms across and has many many more buds than normal. I can’t wait for it to open a bit more.

Roscoea beesiana, the first of many in my collection of Roscoea. Looking just like orchids, they are quite tough plants bulking up year on year.

I’ve cleared quite a large part of this garden of overgrown shrubs to make way for more special plants. This will soon be achieved when we go to North Wales this year as we will be visiting my favourite nursery Crug Farm Plants. I’ve mentioned them before and several of you out there already pay them a visit too. I have to make long lists off their web site as I never know what will be available by the time I get there. That’s my excuse what’s yours….

Enjoy your garden come rain or shine, we are off to a family gathering, should be fun…..

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

                          Or the other way round.

Everything seems to be coming all at once. Not that I am complaining far from it, the whole area is so lush.

One job I must get on with is getting rid of the spring bulb leaves then that will give me more space for hardy annuals. The roses have started to flower quite early this year, this is a selection of just a few.

    Roseraie de l’ Hay.

Maybe this rose is now seen too much in council hedging schemes, but I think it is a sumptuous rose. Flowering all summer long, the foliage is always healthy, the blooms when not weather beaten are perfect and the perfume is strong. Need I say more.

       Rosa x var.spontanea ‘Canary Bird’

      The very last bloom on this early rose, always a welcome sight in the spring.

          Nevada.

      Grown from a cutting taken from a garden belonging to an old lady back in the 1990’s. She was going to move to a smaller house so took me around her garden and gave me cutting after cutting of many beautiful roses. So many of them struck and my garden has benefited from this wonderful gift. Nevada is on a low trellis screening the White Garden from the greenhouse. As it is a once flowering rose with only perhaps a few solitary flowers later on, I grow it along side Clematis viticella Alba Luxurians and Akebia Quinata. I always say where you can grow one climber you can grow three (or more ).

     Rosa Moyesii.

  Another old shrub rose with superb flagon shaped hips. Bought from David Austin Roses about 25 years ago. This grows in amongst Cotinus ‘Notcutt’s Variety’, the foliage complimenting the colour of the rose well.

        Golden Showers.

       A modern climber, Golden Showers very apt as I have just run the gauntlet in the pouring rain to go and find it’s name. A good general climbing rose grown on a pillar along side a viticella clematis with small purple hanging bells. This clematis seeds about quite a bit but that can only be a bonus.

        Iceberg.

  Well the beginnings of, but what a clematis !! No idea which it is but it’s stunning, just hope the flowers last long enough for me to see it flower among the rose.

   And now for the sublime….

    Maianthemum henryi BWJ7616

Bought on one of our forays to North Wales and Crug Farm Plants. A tiny flower, scented if you can get down that far, followed by fleshy red fruits. This is a woodland plant grown by Sue and Bleddyn Wynn Jones, from seed that they have collected from around the world. If you have been following Chelsea then you will have seen the exhibit inspired by Wardian Cases, well all the plants in that display came from Crug.

     Polygonatum SBQE310.

    A tiny polygonatum growing to only20 cms, having tiny pinky/purple flowers. This would grow in a well drained front of the border, but I don’t think you would see the lovely little flowers. I have had mine in a pot since 2001 and only increased the size of the pot twice. This plant along with many others came from Kevin Pratt at Poppy Heads Ltd. I don’t think that the nursery exists anymore as I cannot find it on line, but I do know that he did gives/gave talks to groups. So if anyone knows if he still sells plants I would love to know.

So I have taken you from some of the big and blousey to the small diminutive flowers that are blooming at the moment in my garden. There will be many more to come …I hope you enjoy the journey.