Monthly Archives: June 2018

Just smell those roses…

29/06/2018flowers, plants, rosesJackie Elwin

they all come out at slightly different times and they all have different perfumes too. My newest rose (bought this year) is Jubilee Celebration which has a very fruity almost grapefruit like fragrance so it is on the patio in a large pot so I can enjoy the scent whilst having a cuppa. Next to flower was Munstead Wood with it’s fabulous deep crimson flowers and gorgeous Old rose scent. Then came the climbing rose Zephirine Drouhin. It isn’t doing as well as it could because it really needs to be in full sun and I have planted it towards the back of the garden, which is plunged into shade in the afternoon courtesy of the golf course trees. I have made quite a few mistakes in the garden and that is just one of them. But it still flowers and I just need to give it more TLC than some of the others. It smells divine. William Lobb the moss rose is a lovely dark crimson when it first opens then it fades to a pale greyish violet. It also smells fab. They used to be tied up along wires between 3 tall posts but when we did away with the green house we also took out the posts. They can be a bit sprawly in habit but I am trying to keep them pruned into a more bush like form. That way it keeps the flowers where I can both see and smell them. I have a mini pink rambler in a large pot (along with the Parahebe) which scrambles up an old clothes post. It does quite well and I would like to train it along the fence too. I am not sure if I should have planted the Rosa Rugosa as it is just so unruly. It seams to just flower sporadically and they are all on the very top of the bush. Should I have gone for a dog rose instead? It is in the stumpery/woodland area which can get very shady too but I thought they could cope with almost any condition. I will feed it with rose or tomato feed as just see if that helps this year. At the back of the garden I have newly planted The Generous Gardener. It should be able to cope with some shade so I just hope it can make do with the few hours of sunshine it does get. The flowers are a very feminine, delicate pink and have a beautiful Old rose scent. I do hope I can nurture them enough to cover the arch. The last one to flower is Erotica ( or Eroica – I think that is what it is called – it never had a tag and I bought it over 20 years ago). It has deep red, highly scented flowers and is quite a tall upright bush. The foliage is quite purple/red during spring turning green later. It is always the last one to flower but then that might be due to the way I prune it. I will add a photograph when it finally decides to flower.

Jubilee Celebration

Munstead Wood

Zephirine Drouhin

William Lobb

Mini pink rambler

Rosa Rugosa

The Generous Gardener

And it finally flowers on the 10th July! Well worth waiting for as it is a colour, has a gorgeous scent and has nice long, upright stems so makes a great cut flower.

Erotica

Everywhere you look…

12/06/2018flowers, plants, seed-headsJackie Elwin

another plant is blooming – yeah! Today is lovely and warm in the sunshine but in a couple of days (just when the roses come out) we are due heavy rain. Just our luck, but we haven’t had much rain at all so the garden really needs it. But for now there are lots of plants enjoying this weather. The Honesty is a lovely bright purple, but the slugs are having a good go at them. The chives are looking lovely. My Parahebe Porlock is a great do-er and is in a pot alongside a little pink rambling rose. I just trim it back every year and it keeps coming back. I wish I had planted my Syringa in front of the Viburnum in the raised bed so that I could see the whole shrub as it is covered in scented flowers but the Viburnum is blocking the view – hey ho. The Thyme in the raised looks great under the purple Acer and next to the Saxifraga umbrosa. I do have a few Geraniums (forgotten the name of a few) which have started to flowers now, including the wild ones. The blue one is looking a bit flat. The tiny Geranium dissectum looks cute with it’s tiny flowers and hairy stems but I bet it will be a thug if I leave it to seed, so, I keep taking the seed heads off. The same goes for the herb-robert (Geranium robertianum). The Hebe is covered in tiny pink flowers and the bees adore these. The ragged robin is looking, well, ragged but pretty. The Pasque flower has gone over and I didn’t get a chance to photograph it this year but the seed heads are very pretty.

Lunaria annua purple honesty

Allium shoenoprasum chives)

Parahebe ‘Porlock’

Syringa Josiflexa Belleicent

Hebe ‘Pink paradise’

Lychnis flos-cuculi (ragged robin)

thyme, acer and saxafrage

geranium double violet/pink?

geranium blue?

geranium pink?

geranium wargrave pink

geranium cantabrigiense Biokova white promo

geranium dissectum (tiny)

gersnium robertianum (herb-robert)

Pulsatilla vulgaris (Pasque flower) seed-head

raised bed end-on

Feeling blue…

09/06/2018flowers, garden, plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

what a week! Suffice to say we have had the builders here for a few days and the less said the better!! Scaffolders grrrrrrrr!!
I don’t have that much in the way of blue in the garden but I may add a few more blues over the next few years. The brunneras are still going strong, as are the veronicas, but the forget-me-nots are looking a bit straggly so I have been pulling some of them out. They will have self seeded and will pop up all over the place next year. My mecanopsis Willie Duncan and Susan’s Reward are doing fine now. The slugs really went for them when they were first planted last year (or was that 2 years ago?) but they are now looking good. I moved the blue iris (Jane Phillips) from the middle bed to a sunnier spot last year, having only had them a year, and although they appear much happier the slugs got them too! The centauria blue is flowering away but it looks like something has sat in the middle of it, it is just not able to hold it’s own weight. (the white one got eaten by the pigeons!!). The pale blue aquilegia is still flowering away. My proper blue bells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) that I have in little pots didn’t flower again this year so that has been 2 years now with no flowers. There are a few blooms on the blue geranium but maybe I should thin it out a little as it is spreading just a bit too much and is coming up through other plants now. I had to cut back the Jacob’s ladder as it was being used as a slug nursery and was being completely decimated. That was right next to the fennel (which was also decimated by slugs) so, now that I have dealt with the slugs they might get a chance to grow. This time last year the fennel was over a meter high! There has hardly been any rain over the last 6 or 7 weeks and I have had to keep on top of the watering which takes ages. And the poor pond too needs topping up, and with no rain water about, I have to spray tap water into it. The tadpoles don’t seam to mind. Anyway the garden on the whole is looking ok and the wee sparrows and tits have started to fledge so there is a lot of cheerful chirping about.