Month: May 2020

One of the members of the gardening class has sent me some images from her garden, and they are very pretty plants, marking the change from Spring to Summer.  Here they are.

 

 

 

Remember that post a few days ago, where we gave a supplier a pat on the back for some good nemesia plants in the post?  Here they are, potted up… (or, more accurately, tubbed up!)

 

Even garden peas are pretty, especially when you’re new to growing them…

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

We are definitely coming into rose season now.  In normal years, the June flush is more the July flush, but this year, it’s the May flush.  We’ve seen a couple of images of this year’s roses already, and there are more to come.

For today’s post, one of our gardeners recently planted a newly-released David Austin rose, and she has sent me pictures.  Here it is, Olivia Rose Austin.  It’s a lovely thing.

 

 

 

I can almost smell it from here.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Our classes are for gardeners of all levels of skill and knowledge, and it’s lovely to see beginners looking at new ways to garden.  Here are a couple of images from one of our members who is finding her gardening feet.

 

Here we have some nasturtiums in a recycled bag that has been varnished for longer life.

 

A pot fest of many plants.  I think I can see a baby fig tree in there, too.

Smashing!

 

We haven’t seen the allotment for a little while, and these latest images are a treat.  So, thanks to our gardener there for sending them to me.  Just enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Today, we’ve got snapshots of three completely different gardens.  I’ll let the views speak for themselves:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing!

There was a little drama getting onto WordPress for Tuesday Treats, but hopefully I’ll get this finished!

The answers to last week’s Tuesday Treats have been added in – they’re here, if you want to check:

https://thepleasuregardener.blog/2020/05/19/tuesday-treats-8/

 

It’s time for this week’s mystery plants.  See what you make of these.

1

Edited to add:  A red hot poker, of course, almost certainly Kniphofia ‘Atlanta’, named for the hotel in Cornwall where it was first found.  A very reliable May-flowerer.

 

2  The pink-flowered shrub

Edited to add:  Weigela, believed to bee ‘Bristol Ruby’

 

3  The orange flowers

Edited to add: Papaver orientale ‘Brilliant’.  And it is!

 

4  The purple flowers

Edited to add:  the lovely Allium ‘Purple Sensation’.

 

5

Edited to add: A Dutch Iris, probably ‘White Magic’

 

6  Yes, this plant.  Also, name the type of inflorescence, for Brownie points.

Edited to add: Arum italicum ssp italicum ‘Marmoratum’.  It used to be called Arum italicum ‘Pictum’, which means ‘painted’, like the Picts.  ‘Marmoratum’ means ‘marbled’.

The inflorescence – it has a hooded spathe which contains the flowers on a club-like spadix.  If you got that, have a nice cup of tea and a good sit down.

 

7  The white flowers in the centre foreground.

Edited to add: Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’.  Named for Max Leichtlin who founded a botanical garden in Baden-Baden, and specialized in the cultivation and propagation of bulbous plants.

 

8

Edited to add: Nectaroscordum siculum, the Sicilian honey garlic.  ‘Siculum’, unsurprisingly, means ‘of Sicily’, although it ranges across Southern Europe.

 

Best of luck!

 

 

 

Many people in the UK have spent more time in their gardens in the last two months than they have in the last two years.  That’s a good thing.

And many people, including our gardeners in the gardening classes, have been trying things they haven’t tried before.  Growing plants from seed for the first time is hard and uncertain, at least until those little green shoots pop up above the surface of the compost, making all the angst worthwhile.  Growing vegetables from seed is even more of a worry, even if you aren’t utterly dependent on what you grow for food on the table.  There’s so much to go wrong, you think, as you lovingly consign your tiny seeds to a pot or seed tray.

And then there’s the weather.  April here was very warm and dry.  May has been July, very hot and dry.  Except when it wasn’t, and went back to being January.  Temperature records have been broken in both directions.  This has been a tough month for seedlings and for first time seedling growers.  They’ve probably drunk a lot of tea and eaten a lot of cake fretting about it.

Still, these gardening students are tough, and their seedlings are tougher.  here are some pictures sent by one of our gardeners of her first efforts.

Seedlings of the pretty Knautia macedonica

 

Lettuce seedlings that have struggled a little with the heat…

 

And have now picked up again after some TLC, or possibly a good talking to.  I find that both seem to work.

 

Rocket seedlings

 

You can see that there’s a great deal of recycling going on as well.

Let’s wish our gardener success in this first seed venture!

 

There are many things that we’re missing, even though the lockdown is easing just a tad.  Here’s a picture from my collection.  It was taken in 2016, at about this time of year, on a visit to Felley Priory.  I want one.

 

 

It’s a wonderful apricot tree peony with a wisteria.  I would have loved to see it again this year – and all of Felley Priory’s other treasures.  Ah well, next year maybe…

For years I had a golden pea – Lathyrus aureus – which I’d grown from seed.  Then, the rabbits decided they liked it too.  The rest is a dismal story.

After its demise, I tried to grow another one, but all attempts failed.  Then, one of our gardeners in the Gardening class gave me a seedling from their Golden Pea.  She has just asked me if it still survives, and sent me a picture of the parent plant.

Yes it does survive!  And it’s flowering right now.

This is the picture sent to me of its Mum, or Dad, or both…  And a lovely thing it is.

 

It’s a shrubby, herbaceous plant, not a climber.

Thanks for giving me one of your offspring!  :~))

 

Mail order plants can get a bad press, especially at the moment, when both Royal Mail and private couriers have been overwhelmed by demand from the locked-down population.

One of our gardeners has received a parcel today, and is dancing a jig on her lawn.  I’m not surprised – the plants look lovely.  Here they are:

 

A box full of Nemesia – and it looks like good, stout packaging.

 

And here they are, unpacked.

 

Super!   I should give a shout out to the supplier (Plants by Post), and no, none of us get any benefits from them.  But if a supplier does well, we should say so.

As an afterword – I’ve had to edit yesterday’s post.  It isn’t a tree stump, after all…