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5 Perennial Plants for late colour in the garden – Part 1
I’m really pleased this year with the amount of late colour my perennial plants are still giving. I remember distinctly in the first garden I created, getting to August with just one plant still in flower and thinking, “where’s all the colour gone”? I set about learning which plants gave late summer colour and started incorporated them into my borders. When we arrived here and started to create a wildlife friendly garden from scratch, I was determined to have flowers for as much of the year as possible. This wasn’t just for my benefit but for the insects needing fuel, especially later in the year before going into winter. I’m…
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Cosmos – Lost and Found
I say lost and found, as when I first started gardening a long time ago… I always grew cosmos, but then I discovered perennials and gave up growing annuals for years. Last year though I rediscovered what wonderful plants annuals are and particularly. 2021 – Cosmos came back to the garden It came about as I created a small wildflower border last year, I bought a few packets of annual seeds including cosmos. Coincidentally a friend had also grown cosmos last year and gave me some of her seedlings – it was meant to be! Gosh I really had forgotten how lovely they are; how big they grow; how prolifically…
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Dierama Plants – Fussy, but worth the trouble!
Dierama plants are fussy, but once they are happy in your garden, they will reward you with multiple, unusual flowers, that dangle delicately on a tall, impossibly thin arching stem 5ft in the air. Then you will understand their common names of ‘Angels fishing rods’ and ‘Dancing Ladies’. When the wind catches their flowers, they literally do dance around. Dieramas are classed as a perennial plant but their leaves are evergreen. They’re thin and resemble a type of grass, with tufts around 2ft or 60cm high. They originate from mountainous grasslands in South Africa. So they are looking for a sunny, south facing position with well drained soil. Anything less than these…
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The garden is full of life
Birdsong for better or for worse As soon as you enter the garden at the moment, your ears are full of birdsong. Admittedly some are more pleasant than others, as we do get gulls regularly squawking overhead, despite being rather a way from the sea – even as the crow (or gulls) fly. Talking of crows, we also have rather a lot of them too, Jackdaws mainly. I think it’s because of the huge old trees we have around. You really can see where the saying ‘Noisy old crow’ comes from. And of course wood pigeons, that go on, and on, and on. But despite the not so pleasant cries,…
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A Red, White & Blue Theme to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles lll
To celebrate the coronation yesterday of our new monarch, King Charles lll, we are having a right, royal red, white and blue theme this Sunday. I do hope you’ve enjoyed watching all the pomp and ceremony, that we here in Britain pride ourselves on doing rather well! And didn’t we do well again! Watching our armed forces on parade always sends a shiver down my spine, but those three cheers were so emotional. I’ll bet the relations of those taking part were extremely proud of them! Todays the day for picnicking al fresco, so to get you in the mood, get out your union jack napkin; cut yourself a slice…
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Just as the garden is waking up from its winter slumber…
It’s typical really, just as the garden’s waking up from its winter slumber, with all the plants pushing up and the lovely flowers bursting out everywhere I look. The weather forecaster tells us that for the next week or so we’re going to be having, snow, sleet, rain and temperatures dropping below zero! So no doubt they’ll be taking a quite a bashing! Just as we’re all desperate to believe that spring has sprung, it reminds us that we’re not past the bad weather yet. In all fairness though we have had another incredibly mild winter taken as a whole, just that one very cold snap in mid-December. Seed Sowing…
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Heatwave – Monsoon. How the Flowers coped
It’s been a strange year for flowers, some came and went so quickly as a result of the heatwaves and generally hot summer. Quite disappointing when you’re looking forward to seeing them. Others like Ligularia ‘Desdemonas’ huge leaves kept wilting, but then revived with a small amount of water and went on to flower. The Walnut’s drunk all the Water Lots of the mid-summer perennials just didn’t reach their usual size. The thalictrum being the most obvious down in the white garden. It only reached about half the normal height, with very few flowers. I suppose it’s not that surprising that quite a few plants in the white garden have…
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The Big Lavender Chop
The Lavender path along the greenhouse has had a seriously big chop this year. I’m not sure how this story is going to end, and I guess I won’t know fully until next year! To keep your lavender looking good for as long as possible, it’s really important to trim it every year. It needs to be done as soon as the flowers have gone over, this is usually early September. It’s also important to not trim it too late in the year. It needs time to put on new growth and for this soft new growth to harden up, giving it protection through the winter. The most important rule…
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Wildflowers – My New Border
It’s wonderful that wildflowers and wildflower meadows are being appreciated again, and so many people are planting a version of them in their own gardens. At the same time it’s really sad to know how many have been lost over the last few decades. Again it’s the gardeners of the country that are helping by growing these insect friendly plants again! I’ve loved wildflowers ever since walks with my auntie as a little girl, when she used to teach me the names. Even the cultivated varieties of flowers that I choose tend to be the more natural looking ones. When I was designing our garden, the vegetable growing area and…
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Food from Flowers – With help from our little friends
Have you ever stopped to notice the flowers that become our food? A lot are small, some are insignificant, but others are as beautiful and spectacular as any ornamental flowers we grow. Fortunately, however small and plain they are, the insects that pollinate them don’t miss them. They busily fly from one flower to another, getting their reward of nectar and pollen, unwittingly pollinating the plants. The big majority of our food is reliant on our busy, buzzy, little friends doing this service for us. As they pass pollen from one flower to another they fertilise the plant and so allowing it to produce seeds. As with everything in life…
