I was missing in action last week, well, it was more inaction but that’s another story. I can’t get WordPress to work on my iPad so am writing this on my phone. It’ll be a short post😂
Over the last week or so I’ve gone through all the ferns in the fern wall, cutting off the old leaves and repotting/potting them on. They need a bit of a move around but there were no winter losses which is really pleasing.
I’ve also put the pots of succulents back on their steps. The Non-Gardener has now made me three of these.
The Foxgloves are starting to open. They’re all self seeders and, so far, I can’t see any white ones. This is a lovely pale pink at least.
The herbaceous plants are growing daily in the warmer weather and the main border is filling up fast. This photo shows the left hand end. I missed pruning Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’ (on the left hand obelisk). It is smothered with buds so I’ve decided I’ll tackle it after the first flush.
and this is the right hand end
A chance self-seeded combination that has appeared in a couple of places in the border is Millium effusam aureum and Forget-Me-Nots.
The garden has reached the “I can’t keep up stage” and is becoming full of colour. However, I’m going to start this weeks Six with something else exciting.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’d bought a large water container – a 1000 litre IBC. The Non-Gardener has been busy installing it, connecting it to the guttering on the garage and is now connecting the solar powered watering systems to it. Ironically, after such a wet autumn, winter and early spring it needs rain to fill it up. There’s a wet weekend forecast but a hosepipe may need to come into play.
One of the obelisks in the main border is currently covered in beautiful Clematis flowers. Sadly, I don’t know the variety as I thought I was buying a different Clematis.
After the Dahlias were lifted in the autumn the bed was planted up with a collection of mixed Narcissi (free with some plants I’d ordered) and Wallflowers.
Next up is a shot of part of the glasshouse border. Persicaria runcinata ‘Purple Fantasy’ and Dicentra eximia are the current stars.
The patio is particularly colourful at the moment thanks to the pots of Tulips. The pots of early ones are going over now but these are getting into their stride.
The unfurling ferns continue to fascinate.
Dryopteris affinis.
Have a good weekend and thank you for reading my Six. The other Sixers can be found at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk thanks to our host Jim.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Epimediums were starting to flower under cover of the previous years leaves. I painstakingly cut the old leaves off and have enjoyed the brief floral display. Now the new leaves are rising rapidly and are a lovely lime green/bronze combination, this one in a sea of Pulmonaria and Forget-Me-Nots.
In the same border and to the left of the above photo is a Hydrangea whose name has been lost/forgotten over the years. It came from Sally Gregson’s Mill Cottage Plants (sadly no longer) and has lovely dark leaves. In front of it this year is a self-seeded variegated Honesty.
I cut the old fronds off of the rest of the ferns in the Birch bed and then mulched the bed with bark. It looks so tidy!
I need to go through the plants in the Fern Wall now and tidy them up. I think I’ve lost a couple but it’s still a bit early to say for sure.
A narrow border at the top of the garden looking down towards the Birch tree.
Looking the other way along the same border is a small ‘froggy’ pond with Dicentra formosa ‘Langtrees’ behind it. A pot of Caltha palustris in the pond is adding a lovely bright splash of colour.
I took these photos yesterday evening and the bright sun limited what I could photograph but it looked lovely shiny on/through the newly opened leaves of Sorbus aucuparia ‘Autumn Spire’. It looks like there is going to be quite a lot of blossom.
A quick six this week as it’s a busy Friday and Saturday for me. Thanks for looking at my selection of six from my garden. Head over to http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk where our host Jim keeps all the Sixers in order.
The top picture is of Narcissus ‘Charming Lady’, a late flowering variety I’ve not grown it before but it’s supposed to have a vivid orange trumpet but it seems to have some pink in it to me. I think I like it though.
Saturday again! It comes around so quickly. It’s also getting harder to whittle the choice down to just six things. I’ve potted up a lot of the Dahlias, Eucomis and Begonias – a few still left to do. Keeping them in the loft for the winter seems to work really well with very few losses since I’ve been doing this. Warmer days and less rain have resulted in a lot of growth in the borders, including (of course) lots of ‘weeds’. It’s strange how we spend years trying to get plants to establish in our gardens and then spend years weeding out unwanted seedlings. This week I’ve been removing unwanted Verbena bonariensis, Nigella, Calendula and Cenolophium denudatum. They’re so generous!
The strong winds earlier in the week gave the Tulips a bit of a battering but more are opening now. They seem to be going over very quickly this year, or is it just me?
T. ‘Angelique’, though they look rather different to their namesake that has been in the main border for several years. I was going to add these to them.
T. ‘Queen Jewel’. First time of growing, probably not the last.
T. ‘Showcase’ and ‘White Valley’. These were in last weeks Six but have blown already.
One of my very favourite and I grow it most years, T. ‘Palmyra’ in the sunshine yesterday.
On the shady side of the patio now. I recently removed the old fronds of Dryopteris affinis ‘Crispa’ and the warmer weather has worked its magic.
There are four quite large water butts in the garden that I run solar powered watering systems off of for all of the pots and the glasshouse. With the exception of last years miserable summer, for the last few years I have had to top the butts up with tap water to ensure a constant supply. The Non-Gardener had been looking into adding another water butt and linking it to an existing one to increase capacity. A limiting factor is that the house down pipe is at the far end of the house next door so we can only collect off the garage, glasshouse and a small extension. Then I remembered that our host, Jim, had posted about a system that he had installed. This is the result!
A 1000 litre capacity tank. The N-G has removed it from its cage so that we can lift it over the garage roof to install it. What’s the betting that we’ll have a drought now!
Having mentioned seedlings at the top, I grew Angelica gigas from seed three years ago. Disappointingly, I didn’t seem to have any seedlings last year but there are plenty this year. I’m going to have to remove some I think. They’ve appeared in two areas of the main border.
I posted about a new tree that I planted a couple of weeks ago (sorry, just can’t work out how to attach a link) and I’ve had a revamp of the (small) surrounding area. It’s all pale and tasteful so I wanted a brighter patch – it’s the quilter in me.
Bergenia ‘Dragonfly Sakura’. It’s bright!
The sunshine is bringing out the wildlife as well. Although this Viburnum (variety forgotten but it has an amazing scent) is going over now it was alive with visitors yesterday afternoon. I can’t remember the last time that I had a Peacock butterfly visiting.
Another Six shown (I may have cheated slightly with the Tulips) and reasonable weather forecast. Have a good weekend and don’t forget to head to http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk to see the other Sixes. Thanks for reading mine.
Despite the downpours and showers there have been some gardening opportunities this week and I feel that I’m beginning to catch up with the season a bit.
Epimediums are great ground cover plants but the one fault they have is that the early spring flowers don’t rise up above the old foliage. Cutting these old leaves down in late winter before the flowers start appearing solves this problem. It’s another job that I hadn’t done and the Epimediums were looking like this
It took a while but I painstakingly cut all the old growth out and now it looks like this. It’s not the clearest picture as it’s been windy this week.
Another Epimedium grows among the ferns in the Birch tree bed. This one grows next to a Cyrtomium and a hedgehog made his/her winter home in a pile of leaves built up between the two. He/she vacated the premises several weeks ago so I felt safe to cut the old foliage of both plants down.
The new fronds of ferns are so beautiful and I could fill a few Sixes but I’ve limited myself to just one more this week. This is Polystichum polyblepharum, such a good fern.
Along from the above fern is Erythronium ‘Pagoda’. It has a very brief flowering period and the slimy beasts haven’t found it yet. The flower is beautiful but I love the leaves.
The warmer days and nights have brought the Tulips on really quickly and some opened up in yesterdays sunny spell.
This is supposed to be Tulip ‘Ice Stick’ – I planted three troughs of them and they’re all the same. Very pretty, but not what I ordered.
Another variety that opened yesterday is T. ‘Showcase’. It’s a double early and is supposed to be carmine-purple. The colour seems a little light but I like it very much.
Along with the warmer weather come the more unwelcome visitors. I found Lily beetles on the Fritillarias and yet more Rose Chafer grubs, this time in the bags of leaf mould. On the positive side – I also saw a lot of huge bumble bees and plenty of Ladybirds. I’m sure that there will be a lot more Tulips to be seen in the other Six on Saturdays. Visit our host Jim at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk to see them. Have a good weekend.
Last Sunday and Monday were dry and quite sunny so on Monday afternoon I finally managed to cut the lawn for the first time since the autumn. It was a bit wet really but looked much better afterwards. Since then we’ve had heavy showers every day but I’ve managed to spend some time in the glasshouse potting things on and yesterday I started seed sowing, always an exciting time.
A few weeks ago we cut down the Amelanchier as it was dying. There didn’t seem to be any signs of disease so I’ve planted another tree in the same area. There’s still some of the trunk of the Amelanchier to cut down further but I’m going to remove the roots as I come across them. After great deliberation I chose a Crataegus prunifolia ‘Splendens’ as the replacement.
Just to the left of the tree is Mukdenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans’ which appeared above ground about a month ago. I’m hoping that without the Amelanchier there this plant will have a chance to spread a bit. The leaves go a lovely crimson in the autumn.
To the right of the new tree is a Pieris. It has been there for many years, not exactly thriving, but doing okay. However, in three out of the last four years frost has blackened the new growth and the plant hasn’t put on much growth. When I made the decision about the Amelanchier last autumn I also decided that the time had come to remove the Pieris. However, the weather hasn’t been right to do this and now it’s covered with colourful new shoots! There may be a stay of execution.
It was pouring with rain again within five minutes of taking this photo. What I haven’t shown in the picture is the bottom half of the plant which is virtually bare of branches.
In the main border two clumps of Tulipa ‘Angelique’ are adding a lovely splash of colour. They’ve been in the ground here for several years, one of the few Tulips to come back again when planted out.
I always plant several pans of small bulbs for the spring and then plant some of the bulbs around the garden. Since the Dahlia bed came into being I’ve been planting Anemone blanda, Crocus and Iris reticulata around the edge.
Bringing up the rear this week is Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’. I bought this as a small plant a few years ago for a winter patio pot and then planted it in the garden the following spring. It’s not growing very quickly but it lights up this shady corner.
The forecast is for a dry and sunny day today and my plan is to start taking the boxed up Dahlias and Begionias out of the loft and start potting them up. It’s at this time of year that I could really do with a glasshouse extension.
Have a good Easter weekend, I’m really looking forward to spending some evening time in the garden this coming week (weather providing) thanks to the clocks going forward.
With a bit of sunshine earlier in the week I finally finished pruning the climbing Roses. It’s not like I’ve got that many either!
This unknown Euphorbia is thriving in the front garden, so much so that a bit of a cull will need to be done at cutting down time. In the meantime, it’s a cheerful sight when walking up to the front door.
The pots of Hostas have been brought out into the open as the new shoots are emerging. I’m quite surprised that they’ve not been munched by the slimy beasts yet.
The patio pots continue to fill out and the warmer days and nights have suited the Tulips. Admittedly, these T. ‘Showcase’, which I’ve not grown before, are an early double variety but it won’t be long…….
Another bulb in a pot. These Fritallaria uva-vulpis have come back for their third year of flowering. I’m not sure that they would really show up if I planted them in the garden but this way I can admire their subtle beauty on my way to the glasshouse.
Last year I grew Impatiens omeiana for the first time. I wasn’t sure if it would be hardy in the ground so grew it in a pot underneath the Birch tree. I left it there for the start of the winter resolving to move it if the weather turned really cold. It’s stayed put all winter and new growth has pushed through well. It’s going in the ground this year.
Back to the front garden to finish with. For many years I grew Clematis alpina ‘Francis Rivis’ by the north facing front door. A couple of years ago it failed to regrow in the spring and, after giving it a chance for a year, I decided to replace it with the very similar C. alpina ‘Blue Dancer’. Perfect choice.
I’ve a quieter week coming up, fingers crossed, and hope to start some seed sowing. I also need to get the boxes of Dahlia tubers and summer bulbs out of the loft and potted up. Thank goodness the clocks go forward next week, It’s an exciting time of the year to be gardening. Thanks to our host Jim for hosting. Find him and the other Sixers at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk
A couple of dry days gave the hope that a weather corner had been turned but no, the rain returned yet again and the garden is still saturated. Undeterred, the plants are growing and there’s something new to see every day. I’m sorry that some of the photos aren’t quite in focus but it was breezy between the showers yesterday.
I know that I was very late planting bulbs in the patio pots last autumn/winter but they seem to be very slow coming up. Narcissus ‘February Gold’ are only just starting to flower in some of the pots.
This pot seems even further behind but I really like this variety of Iris reticulata.
I. ‘Pixie’ to be followed by N. ‘Jack Snipe’ and T. ‘Largo’
Lamprocapnos (I still prefer it’s old name) spectabile is at the stage where you can almost see it growing. It’s one of the few things in the garden that the slugs and snails aren’t eating.
I have a clump of Fritillaria meleagris in the garden that came from my dad’s garden many years ago. Ordinarily, the garden is too dry for them and, although they return every year, they haven’t really multiplied. Maybe all of this rain will encourage them to do so.
I moved a few of them a couple of years ago to a different part of the garden but they aren’t quite in flower yet.
In the main border Muscari latifolium is beginning to spread a bit too much and I’m going to remove some of them when they finish flowering. I always remove the flower heads before they set seed but it hasn’t slowed them up much.
As I grow mainly herbaceous plants the borders could look a little bare in early spring but there’s usually a lot of Forget-me-Nots to cover the soil. Last summer I decided to remove a lot of it as it really was taking over but a fair proportion of the remaining plants have succumbed to the winter wet and rotted away. The remaining plants seem quite small but they are starting to flower.
I really need to spend some time in the glasshouse this week potting on the autumn cuttings and the over wintered half hardy annuals. At least that can be done in the rain. Thanks for reading my Six and thank you to our host Jim at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk
I sneaked in Coronilla glauca ‘Citrina’ at the top of my Six. It’s been flowering for several weeks (and was in a Six a couple of weeks ago) but yesterday afternoon was sunny for a while and the scent of the Coronilla filled the top of the garden for the first time. Wonderful.
It’s been a much drier week this week, though several nights the temperature fell to around zero degrees. It’s also been a busy week so I thought that I’d use some of the photos that I took for last weeks six that I wasn’t able to post. As the previous week had been very wet they were mainly houseplant related.
Epiphyllum anguligar is having a growth spurt though most of the new shoots are of the straighter type rather than the fishbone/ricrac type.
I grew Cyperus papyrus from seed last spring and pricked out and grew on several potfuls. Although not hardy I wanted to try to overwinter them so cut down one potful and put it under the staging in the glasshouse. The other three pots I moved indoors by the west facing patio door and didn’t cut them down. I then read that they don’t do very well indoors and aren’t very successfully overwintered in this way. The pot in the glasshouse looks somewhat dead at the moment but the ones indoors have looked healthy all winter and have signs of new growth at their bases. The tops are browning so I will cut them back this week.
I’ve grown Oxalis triangularis as a houseplant for many years. I also grow a pot in the glasshouse and it dies back in the winter. It’s just starting to emerge now. I’ve tried it in a pot outdoors in the summer but, without fail, it succumbed to rust every time.
Aeschynanthus parvifolius (I think) flowered for weeks on end last summer. It has decided to do a bit of winter flowering for some reason though a lot of the buds are dropping off just before they open. It’s not a very scenic photo as the plant grows in the kitchen by the boiler.
I thought I’d finish with a couple of photos taken in the garden yesterday when I got home from work. First up is a pot of Crocus that have finally had some sunshine to let them open.
Crocus ‘Snowbunting’ with Narcissus ‘Hawara’ and Tulip ‘Hermitage’ to follow.
Talking of Narcissi, sadly the ones in the garden mostly look like this.
The damage seems to be being done mostly by tiny snails.
I managed to finally start pruning the climbing Roses last Sunday and hope to finish them next week, although I’m not sure how dry the coming week will be.
See how the other Sixers are getting along in their gardens by visiting our host Jim at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk and following the links.
What is there left to say about the weather! So, moving on, here are six things from my waterlogged garden.
Hellebores don’t seem to mind the never ending rain. I don’t have many doubles, something that I intend to remedy over the next couple of years, but this one is a Credale Nursery double.
The bulbs in the patio pots were late being planted but are coming through well. Last week I put a photo of a pot of Iris ‘Clairette’ (although I didn’t notice until too late that autocorrect named them Claudette). This week the Iris ‘Alida’ have come out. I have to say that they look very similar to ‘Claudette’, maybe a little shorter.
Some of the Tulips are beginning to poke their noses through the compost surface. These have the recognisable pink leaf stripes of Tulip ‘Chinatown’.
Slugs and snails are nibbling at so many of the flowers, the Narcissi are being shredded, and leaves but they don’t seem to like Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’ though looking closer at the photo I can see a nibbled leaf😂 The markings show really well on the shiny wet leaves.
There are several self seeded plants of Pulmonaria around the garden and they are just coming into flower. I cut all of last years leaves off a few weeks ago.
The rain hasn’t deterred Coronilla glauca ‘Citrina’. We just need some sunshine now to bring out the lovely fragrance.
I’m sorry that some of the pictures are a little blurry but it was quite windy yesterday afternoon. Thank you for reading my six. There are lots more to read at http://www.gardenruminations.co.uk where you will find our host Jim.
Six on Saturday 