Well, whilst the rain pelts down against the garret door I’ll just do a bijou update on the garden as we cruise from June to July.
Curiously, perhaps with the early frost then burning dry patch, everything seemed to come out in a helter skelter all at once and hang around well past the scheduled end of the performance giving unsolicited encores. The poppies have been spectacular and some are still flowering! Whilst most of the peonies were looking a bit sad, the big ‘un in the library bed had a great year.
Our old stalwarts of helianthemum and hardy geranium gave a last hurrah at the end of June before pegging out and letting the valerian and self seeded daucus carrota take over to bridge the late June gap. The bees are now loving the cephalaria and we are now in hemerocallis season. We started with pale yellow and pink, moved into spiky brick red and now the red and double orange ones are just about to pop. I had some yellow and red splurge ones dug up last year and split with a view to rehoming. Alas the labelling went awry, but thankfully two big pots of “mystery items” have flowered and declared their hand and I can see a likely looking third. I really must get better at contemporaneous labelling – “I’ll remember” is just delusional.
It’s been a really good year for dierama. A lot of the little seedlings I’ve been secreting here and there in the borders have finally got to flowering size. I shall be round harvesting some seed shortly in the hope of even more (you can never have enough). The dry period did no favours for my early lilies, but the later ones have perked up no end since the recent showers and I’m hoping will settle down and multiply.
The pond is awash with flowers. The waterlilies are laden, there’s a flowing rush fighting through the forget me not (which is having a second flush) and I’ve even had flowers on the water soldiers. I think some judicious thinning is going to be necessary – the yellow lysimachia is on the march again and even the gunnera is looking squished.
This year’s annuals have done well. The cosmos variety proved a bit small – I miss the giants of Fizzy Mixture – but perfectly formed. salpiglossis on the other hand, has been lovely and larger than I thought. The star of the show though are the Icelandic poppies around the peach tree. I have tried to grow them in the border with no great success, but on the bare soil in the pot they have been fabulous. I foresee repeat purchases.
And now I need to splash back to the house in the rain………
