Month: June 2018

Today belongs to my students.  They’re a pretty varied bunch of lovely people who have come together because of their love of gardening.  And a reasonable number, like me, are resistant to technology.  So, it’s very heartening to have been inundated this week with pictures for the blog.  Far too many for a single entry.  So, there will be more entries this week to illustrate their plants, their gardens, and their travels.  Watch this space!

So, to begin, we’ve got images here from five gardeners.

We’re all getting worried about the falling numbers of hedgehogs, so it’s heartening to see this one caught on camera in the garden.  Awwww….

From the same gardener, such a pretty little viola.  No name, grown from saved seed, but what a cutie!

Don’t you just love the tissue paper flowers of cistus.  It looks like the sort of flower you should stick behind your ear when off for cocktails!

From the same gardener as the cistus is the striking foxglove ‘Pam’s Choice’, complete with attendant bumble bees!

From our third gardener we have a picture taken today, but which somehow looks as though it should be in the snowy depths of winter.  But it isn’t.  It’s Aruncus sylvestris, with Carex brownii in the pot.

And from the same gardener, this lovely blue penstemon, in front of Hakonechloa macra alboaurea.  Well, the penstemon was mine, grown from seed, and it’s all my fault that the label is long lost and the identity forgotten.  My own plants, too, are long gone.  They clearly didn’t like my garden, but they love it here.

And I’ve just realised I can’t count – again – but I’m going to add a seventh, because it’s very timely this week.

From our fourth gardener, orchids in a handbag, from the RHS flower show at Chatsworth.  Who’d’ve thought it?

And finally (because I can), from our fifth gardener:

A hot display of Kniphofia!  What a scorcher!

That’s it for today, but I have a wealth of images to follow up with, including the odd one or two of my own.

Whoops!  Forgot to add this:

There’s my six for this week.  If you want to join in (and why wouldn’t you?) go here and check it out:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/

You can see links to all the other Six on Saturday participants!

 

 

 

 

A mixed bag this week, some from the students and some from me.

1  The first is from one of the students.  She moved to this house only recently, and has done a lot of work in the garden.  Here it is:

2  The second image is from another student, a picture of some gorgeous ferns unfurling themselves in the gardens of Mount Grace Priory:

That’s my store of images from the gardening groups exhausted, so the rest of this Saturday’s pick are from my garden.

3  This is Siberian Iris ‘Pink Parfait’.  This is its first time of flowering, and I love it.

4  Another one flowering for the first time – Oriental Poppy ‘Harlem’.  Must remember to stake it next year – it’s giving the neighbouring penstemon a hard time.

5  A beautiful, fragrant peony next to Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’.  The peony was a gift, and the giver thought it might be ‘Sarah Bernhardt’.

6  And finally, a problem.  Last week I posted a picture of one of the big fat buds of Oriental Poppy ‘Snow Goose’.  This is what happened when that bud opened.  Also, there are long, dark brown streaks on the stem, underneath the base of each leaf.  As the other buds start to open, there is some brown staining on the petal edges, but not as bad as this.  One of my students, with a similar problem, consulted the RHS, who diagnosed it as Pedicel Necrosis.  Any information, anyone?  I’m tempted to dig it up and throw it away, but the stems are strong and the flowers are enormous.  They would be very beautiful without this problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another week, another Saturday…

We’ve had some rain, which has helped all this bosky new growth.  The orchard is exciting.  It’s gone from a neatly mown expanse of green, with blue pools of forget-me-nots to a jungle that needs to be explored with elephant guns and tiger traps.  Oh well, the insects will love it.

My six for this week are a little on the wild side – well, some of them are.

1  Ragged Robin, or Lychnis flos-cuculi.

I have Lychnis ‘Petite Jenny’ in the border, a dwarf, very double version of Ragged Robin.  Because it’s so double, it’s sterile and doesn’t produce seed.  Um.  This plant popped up a couple of feet from ‘Petite Jenny’, so I don’t think its mum has read the books.

2  Fringed campion, or Silene fimbriata

This was given to me by one of my students.  It has an amazing capacity to thrive in deep, dark, dry shade.

3  Siberian Iris ‘Rikugi-Sakura’

I got this last autumn for my new border, so I was pleased to see a flowering stem already.

4  How about them apples?

A very muscular bud, one of several, on another new plant last autumn, Oriental Poppy ‘Snow Goose’.  I can’t wait to see the flower when it opens.

5  Heuchera ‘Pinot Gris’ underneath Hydrangea ‘Sabrina’

The hydrangea languished in a pot for a couple of years, surviving an attack by the dreaded vine weevil, but it’s recovering at last.  The heuchera has really good variable colour all year.

6a  Before

When they start to go pink, you know that your Viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’ is going to finish up like this:

6b  After

Someone said what good confetti it would make, and I can’t but agree.

There’s my six for this week.  If you want to join in (and why wouldn’t you?) go here and check it out:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

Here’s another set of contributions from my students.  They’re really getting the hang of this now.  :~))

The first gardener sent this picture of a visit to the Japanese Kyoto garden at Holland Park.  Beautiful.

He also sent me a picture of his favourite rhododendron.  It’s about 25 feet tall, and full of flowers.

Our second gardener sent a picture of a lovely white broom in her garden that can’t fail to please.

The rest of these images are from our third gardener, showcasing a few of her lovely plants.

This is the striking Heuchera ‘Marmalade’, in front of a pretty Iris.

Here’s what I’ve always called Smilacina racemosa, or False Spikenard, but is now called Maianthemum racemosum.  Whatever you call it, the fragrance is something not to be missed.

This is a pretty self-sown seedling from the long-spurred Aquilegia ‘Yellow Star’.

And finally, a biennial that isn’t seen often enough.  Like a good German wine, you just keep adding bits onto the name, until you get to Lunaria annua alba ‘Variegata’.  It’s white variegated Honesty to you and me.  It starts off a rather drab green, but in early spring, the new foliage is strikingly variegated with pure white, emphasising the white flowers.  And then the seed pods turn into those silvery, papery, moon-shaped discs.  I love it, but so do the rabbits, so I’ll enjoy hers, instead.

I still have some of their images left to show, but tomorrow it’s my turn for Six on Saturday.