Paths, Patios, and Pesky Peckers..

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Over the past month or so I’ve been fitting in a few hours here and there on finishing the hard landscaping. This is long overdue. The rest of the garden – the really important parts; the borders, shrubs, trees, etc. – has been done for some years (although, like all gardens, it’s in a state of constant development). While the shapes of the patios and paths were laid out with the rest of the design, the work of filling in and laying a finish has been intermittent. It’s back-breaking work, and fiddly when you’re re-using materials reclaimed from elsewhere as much as possible.

This is the path that runs up the garden from the house, past the garage, with straight lines and a couple of 90 degree turns…

The old reconstituted slabs (which I’m re-using) were, until this week, just laid on top of grass on this stretch beside the garage. I’ve now dug out the soil, banged in some of the bigger lumps of concrete, blocks etc. for the edges, and filled in with smaller pieces of rubble, and gravel. The next stage (once I’ve gone to pick up some more bags of sand and cement) is to cement in a row of the diamond-patterned engineering bricks along either side. Then I’ll top up the middle with scalpings (re-claimed from hard landscaping I removed elsewhere in the garden) and cement in the slabs. To show what it will look like, here’s the section of path I’ve done already…

I’m pushing on now. I’d really like to be able to move around the garden without that constant element of danger that ‘pavement surfing’ brings. There are three areas of paving to be finished. The main patio is behind our garden room…

The digging out and filling in is done. Next, I’ll need to order some new paving (there isn’t enough of the re-claimed stuff) and set about laying it. Queue more back-breaking work lifting heavy paving stones and knocking up concrete mixes! This area catches the morning sun, and I’m really looking forward to being able to sit out here and have breakfast, and mid-morning coffee. Despite the importance I put on the planting, I would concede there is also great value in having nice patios to sit on! We’re thinking of a natural slate for this patio, enhanced by the addition of lots of plants in pots.

There’s another sitting area under a pergola, beneath the large birch tree, at the end of the garden…

This get’s the sun until early evening in summer, so it’s where we would eat out on summer evenings. Ideally, we’d like to have a pizza oven, but whether that will ever happen or not is anyone’s guess. This patio is a bit of a mish-mash. I gave up lifting the existing paving, which was all over the place, because it’s concreted in like you wouldn’t believe. I’m leaving the rest where it is, but I’ve made good, and then used those stones I managed to salvage (along with some of the engineering bricks) to make an edge for the new shape patio. The rest is being filled in with slate chippings reclaimed from elsewhere (we need to wash the rest before we can use them to fill in the gaps, hence it not being finished yet).

The final paved area, outside the back door, consisted of the diamond bricks laid directly onto sand…

We haven’t quite decided what to do with this, but it will probably be a mix of new slate slabs and any of the bricks we have left over. This will be the last of the hard landscaping jobs, e.t.a. this September (but don’t hold me to that!)

We’re still overrun with sparrows. The primroses in our tiny ‘woodland’ patch were progressing well, but we didn’t seem to be getting any flowers. Something was eating them. I thought it might be voles. Or possibly wood pigeons – we get a lot of those too…

But then I caught the sparrows at it. Here’s the result…

There are a few primroses elsewhere in the garden that have so far survived intact…

It’s hard not to love the birds, but they can be infuriatingly mischievous! The sparrows seem to congregate around us, I think because we are an oasis of planting in a largely treeless wasteland of intensive agriculture and butchered hedgerows (thanks to those ‘custodians of the countryside’ – the farmers). They also like to nest in our eaves (the sparrows, not the farmers!)

After a prolonged period of cold and dull weather the spring flowers that have been peeping up above ground finally managed to open up. These are Crocus tommasinianus that are being rather slow to naturalise in the grass…

Yellow crocuses, already in the garden when we arrived, but moved to beneath one of the pear trees, are coming out now too…

We planted quite a few of the little blue anemones. They disappear completely once they’ve flowered, so it’s easy to inadvertently disturb them later in the year, which could explain why they are few and far between. One of them has put out an early flower though…

Unlike some of the other spring flowers, snowdrops seem to like our ‘terroir’ and are spreading nicely…

After a brief, bright interlude, we’re back to foul weather. It’s much less cold, but wet and very windy. Still, the emergence of spring flowers is a sign of things to come. Buds on shrubs and trees are beginning to swell, and the days are getting longer. It shouldn’t be too long before the garden really gets going…

Late Butterflies

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Its been reported that this has been a very bad year for butterflies, and that’s certainly been borne out in our garden. So it was satisfying to see two very attractive species in the garden at the weekend. The first was a Red Admiral, here feeding on an aster (one of the self-seeded Symphyotricum novi-belgii varieties)…

I read somewhere that ‘Red Admiral’ is actually a corruption of the original name of ‘Red Admirable’, which makes more sense. I’ve never noticed the two little blue patches at the back of the wings before.

We also had two Comma butterflies flitting around, mostly attracted to the Verbena bonariensis…

No doubt those Commas were drinking as much nectar as they could before the season comes to a full stop (see what I did there?) The growing season is beginning to shut down now, with autumn colours coming out in the leaves. This is the orange-flowered witch hazel Hamamelis ‘Jelena’…

The weather has turned cold, and the sun is low, and gardening is less about topping up the sun tan while you work, and more about wrapping up and trying to keep warm while you tidy up for the winter. The cannas have been dug up (apart from the one shown at the foot of the page, which I left in the border to continue flowering) and put in the greenhouse for protection. As has this garden friend. She keeps us company in the garden all summer but, like me, can’t take the frost…

Note the tomatoes . Another of this odd season’s disasters, they sat and sulked for so long before finally starting to grow that they’re only now beginning to produce fruits!
The dahlias will be next to be stored. It’s so frustrating to visit gardens and see dahlias full of flower, when our two plants produced only one flower each all season. Yes, that’s just ONE flower each! I’d blame the peat-free compost (which we have had problems with in the past), but while one (Dahlia ‘Happy Days Red’) was in compost, in a container, the other (Dahlia ‘Bishop of Leicester’) has been in the ground for the past three seasons. I really don’t know what went wrong. Must try harder next year (and with both of us retired by then, we should have more time).

text & images © graham wright

The Last of Summer

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It’s getting cold now. Day length seems to be shortening rapidly. At least the sun is beginning to shine again, after a prolonged period of dull, wet weather. The summer perennials are putting on their final show, with asters taking centre of the proverbial stage…

There were some clumps of a tall, small blue flowered variety in the garden when we arrived. We added a couple of plants bought on a visit to the Picton nursery in Malvern, who have a national collection. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the labels, but I believe they’re Symphyotrichum novi-belgii varieties. They have bigger flowers, and a deeper colour.

What I’ve discovered, in just a few years, is that all of these not only spread like crazy, but also set seed very easily. Consequentially, these asters (which used to be called asters, but were subsequently re-named by those evil botanists as Symphyotrichum) have mounted a take-over plan. The resulting seedlings are showing variation from the parents. Most are watered down versions of the varieties we introduced (presumably being a mix of different parents). But we’ve also had some pure white ones come up. Some are unimpressive. But others, like this one, have bigger flowers and may prove to be worthy garden plants…

I’ve transplanted this clump from the inappropriate place it had set seed, to the back of a border.
These various asters do make a good show at a time when there isn’t that much else about, and even the small, washed out flowers of the worse specimens are proving popular with the bees. But they need judicious editing. I’m setting about limiting the spread by forking out the underground shoots that are spreading out in all directions. I’m trying to remove spent flowers as they go over, to limit seeding. And when the poorer specimens have finished flowering, I’ll dig them up and get rid of them.

Curiously the Symphyotrichum novae-angliae variety (‘Sapphire’) which has done well in previous years, hasn’t spread at all, and this year has been all but destroyed by molluscs. Aster x. frikartii ‘Monch’ has been slow to establish too, and is struggling to hold it’s own in the border. A shame, because it’s flowers are larger and more brilliant, and it flowers for longer.

Many plants struggle in our thin, dusty, sandy soil, but a few seem to love it so much they become uncontrollable. So far, I’ve discover three like this – the novi-belgii asters, lysimachia clethroides, and an un-identified variety of perennial sunflower which required an intensive programme of removal to eradicate it.

Other plants that are providing some colourful flowers in the garden at the moment include Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, here nestled among Stipa gigantea…

Helenium…

Hylotelephium (formally sedum – for the sake of ease, I now refer to them as Hylo’s). This variety is called ‘Xenox’…

Elsewhere Gaura – I beg your pardon Oenothera (have I said I don’t like botanists?) continues to flower as it sprawls all over the borders…

Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ has been flowering for a long time, and looks sparkling against the dark leaves of Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’ and the orange berries of the pyracantha…

Ceratostygma plumbaginoides seems to do well in our garden, keeping its head down for most of the year, and then producing these lovely, vivid blue flowers in late summer/early autumn…

We’re still getting a few roses, though the plants are looking a bit sickly. This is climbing Rosa ‘Wollerton Old Hall’, with a spider laying in wait for any unsuspecting insect visitors…

The woody salvias are still going (although the perennial Salvia guaranitica ‘Blue Ensign’, which dies back to nothing each year, hasn’t managed to flower yet). We have bright red ‘Royal Bumble’, and this, the dusky purple ‘Nachtvlinder’…

Colour is coming as much from fruits and leaves as from flowers now. This Euonymus alatus has been in for two years now This year it flowered, and has produced striking fruits. The leaves normally colour up a deep red…

We have a grape vine – a cutting from one growing at Dyffryn Gardens, where I used to be a volunteer – growing on our pergola. I can’t remember the variety. Being outside, any grapes it produces are unlikely to ripen, but they look nice…

And the vine leaves are giving good autumn tints…

According to the song by the Eighties band The Icicle Works, autumn is the finest time. Personally, I always find it difficult, because I love warmth and sun, and hate the cold. But even I can’t deny it is a time of great interest in the garden. I guess I’ll just have to pull on a big coat and enjoy the show.

text & images © graham wright 2024

Jam today

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Of the six fruit trees we planted in our mini orchard in the autumn of 2020, the damson has grown to be the biggest, and this year produced the most fruit. Last weekend we picked around three kilos..

The variety is ‘ Cheshire Damson’. They’re surprisingly sweet – I’d always thought they were too sour to eat fresh, but these are almost as sweet as plums. But as there were too many to use before they go off, we decided to have a go at making jam (a first for us). Here it is (well, most of it – we’ve already used one jar and given another away)…

Making jam is a bit of a faff. Luckily for me, my better half did most of the heavy lifting. We both took turns at picking the stones out from the pan while the mix was cooking. It was a bit like fishing, and a messy job. The alternative would have been to try and cut them out from the fruit before cooking, but they don’t come out easily. The recipe came from the internet, but apparently it’s a standard recipe – just equal amounts of fruit and sugar, plus a little bit of water. It wasn’t clear whether the weight of the fruit was with, or without the stones! We weren’t sure the jam was going to set, but it seems to have thickened up reasonably well, and it tastes good.

Once most of the damsons had been picked I took the opportunity to prune the tree. For free standing apple or pear trees, you would normally prune in the dormant season, but damsons, plums and cherries are in the genus Prunus, which can be susceptible to a disease called silver leaf, which spreads more easily when it’s cold and damp. To minimise the chance of infection, it’s recommended they should be pruned in summer. September is a little late, but it was a dry spell (quite rare for this year).

The growth of damson trees seems to be somewhat wayward, and I had to cut out a lot of branches that were crossing or growing into the centre of the tree. Once I’d dealt with these to reduce the congestion and open up the tree to more light and air, I trimmed a little from the ends of the outer branches – particularly at the top – to an outward facing bud, to reduce the height. So hopefully it will be going into autumn in good shape. And in the depths of winter, when we’re tucking into bread and jam for tea, we’ll remember the garden at its verdant best!

text & images © graham wright 2024

Autumn fruits…

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It hardly seems as though we’ve had summer yet, but looking at our apple trees, it suddenly struck me that the season is coming to a close. Perhaps their progress is ahead of schedule this year (although I don’t know why that would be with all the cool weather we’ve had, and the slow start to the growing season). These are apples on ‘James Grieve’, a lovely eating apple that can also be used in cooking. Sadly, it doesn’t store…

The tree is laden with fruit. I did some thinning earlier in the “summer”, but conservatively – I don’t like to take off too many because the trees will lose fruit in the ‘June drop’ and again in the ‘pre-harvest drop’, and if you’re not careful, you can end up with too little. Apples have been falling every day – exacerbated by the windy weather. All have been attacked by pests, and tend to have rotten patches and contain grubs (and sometimes an earwig will crawl out of a hole!) The grubs are, I think, larvae of the codling moth.

Looking at the apples that are still on the tree, most seem to have some sort of insect damage. I really must take more care to put grease bands on the trunks in good time next year (although the pests seem to find their way to the fruit anyway). The windfalls are fine, but we’ve had to cut them up, and use them quickly before the rot spreads, which is difficult because there are so many of them.

We have two apple trees. The other – ‘Worcester Pearmain’ has less fruit, but they’re a good size – last year it produced a crop of under-sized apples. This variety keeps much better – if we can find some that are undamaged.

The pears aren’t so good. ‘Packham’s Triumph’ isn’t living up to its name, having no fruit this year. ‘Concorde’ is better, but not exactly laden down. Although they are supposed to be in the same flowering group, there wasn’t much of an overlap, which could explain why fruit set was patchy. Touch wood, the pears don’t seem to suffer anything like as much damage from pests as apples; the one exception being wasps (of the social, yellow jacket kind) but so far, there have been very few of these this year.

Of the six trees in our mini orchard, it’s the damson that has grown the most, and this year it’s got quite a few damsons, which are ripening well. We’ve tried a few windfalls, and they were surprisingly sweet, but we’ll probably try our hands at making jam (a first!) with most of the crop.

The summer raspberries are in their first year (the first set of canes we planted didn’t take) but we’ve had some fruit from them.

The autumn raspberries have been a continuing trauma. Once again they put on impressive growth, but only one cane is producing fruit. The yellow berries are very tasty, but it’s a meagre crop for a whole, lush row of raspberry canes. At the end of the season I’ll thin the canes out a bit more, but leave some to see if they produce fruit early – alongside the summer ones. They should also produce new canes for autumn fruiting. This is known as double-cropping (thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the garden, who does this successfully and has been advising me). I wonder if my soil is short of potassium, which promotes flower growth? Wood ash is touted as a good source of potassium, so I may have to get the wood stove going this winter to provide a supply for next year.

The veg patch has given us a better crop of peas than in previous years, which we’ve tended to have raw in salads (there haven’t really been enough for main meals).

Broad beans have been similar. Both are coming to and end now.

The runner beans have been very slow again this year; it’s only now that they’re beginning to produce a regular crop from what is now a lush wigwam of plants.

While butterflies have been in short supply this year, there’s been no shortage of earwigs, which I suspect have been responsible for eating the flowers on the runner beans, and delaying the crop. I try to tolerate wildlife where I can, such as this caterpillar of a vapourer moth on the plum tree.

The fruit and veg may be telling us the season’s coming to a close, but the garden has more to give before autumn sets in. Asters grow well in our garden, and spread well too, so we have plenty of them. They’re close to flowering, and should put on a good show.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ has this year achieved something like its full size, with lots of large flower heads which will persist and look good (as they dry) well into winter. Hydrangeas are known to like plenty of moisture. The paniculata varieties are more drought tolerant, though as you can see from this photo, the leaves are somewhat droopy – we really do need some rain now.

Hesperantha (formerly Schyzostylis) is a tough plant that has spread freely around the pond. It’s a late flowerer, and is doing its thing now. In the background is a purple Lobelia x. speciosa ‘Tania’. Unlike the more popular Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria’, which I’ve not managed to get through a winter, this one is in its third year.

And the Japanese anemones are in full bloom now. This is A. ‘Honorine Jobert’ against a dark backdrop of Actaea ‘Brunette’ (which is readying its fragrant white flower spikes as I write) in the white border…

Summer will soon be drawing to a close. It seems particularly unfair that while so far it’s been largely cool and cloudy, we’re in the middle of another drought. Maybe there’ll be some more warmth and sunshine (as well as rain!) to come before autumn. We live in hope. Actually we don’t – Hope is a small town in Derbyshire – but you know what I mean…

text & images © graham wright 2024

RHS Bridgewater 26/7/2024

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I finally managed to fit in a visit to the RHS Bridgewater Garden; my first this year. Bridgewater is fairly new by garden standards, having been created just over three years ago. It was good to see that the gardens are coming along. This is the Welcome Garden, close to the main building…

As you can see, Bridgewater features mass plantings of perennials (including many grasses). It’s heavily influenced by the ‘Prairie style’, which I’ve previously described as ‘carpet bedding on steroids’, largely because it lacks height. There are taller focal points among the perennials – mostly topiarised forms of native beech (Fagus sylvatica), but also some smaller trees that are being allowed to do their own thing. These are becoming more prominent as they grow, ameliorating the sense of flatness.

I may have my reservations about the style of planting, but I would have to admit that the perennials were looking stunning. Veronicastrum features heavily (I’ve not sure which variety they’re using – it could be V. ‘Fascination’)…

A path leading to the Paradise Garden was flanked with lush and fiery tropical-style planting…

I was interested to see how the Chinese streamside garden was developing. I can’t remember whether this impressive wooden pagoda was there when I last visited. It was very popular with the children. Of course it’s the school holidays now, so the garden was busy, but I managed to capture it without any people around…

The streamside garden was looking good. There are still some areas that are very weedy (i.e., they’ve been left to be colonised by native plants!) I presume these will be developed and planted eventually, but they’re so big the RHS has got it’s work cut out. The areas that have been planted look great…

The RHS are running two trials at the Bridgewater Gardens at the moment; one of Heleniums (many of which are yet to flower) and another of Hydrangea paniculata varieties. These were all, to some extent, blooming, and together made quite a show…

Some of the varieties had enormous flower heads. I can’t remember which variety this one is (it looks similar to H ‘Limelight’, which I’ve got in my own garden) but the blooms were huge…

The Paradise garden was perhaps at its peak. The silver-leaf tree/shrub is sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), which has white flowers in April, followed by edible orange berries (which are apparently rich in vitamin C) in the female, so long as there is a male nearby to pollinate. There are a few sea buckthorns dotted around the gardens. The idea was, I believe, that they would be a native alternative to olive, which can sulk in our damp, cold climate (and shipping them in from overseas isn’t very sustainable either). I think they do a very good job – the name ‘sea buckthorn’ sounds uninspiring to me, but the plants themselves look both spectacular, and also very Mediterranean…

There are two fabulous, long glasshouses, backing onto the brick building behind. One has cacti and succulents. The one below is for fruit; with grape vines, peaches, tomatoes and basil all looking lush and healthy, and aubergine plants just setting fruit…

Elsewhere, a few other plants caught my attention. Here is a ginger – one of a clump – with a beautiful flower…

And this Inula was quite striking too…

Creating Bridgewater gardens on the overgrown site of an extant country estate (Worsley New Hall, Salford) was a massive, daunting project, but the RHS have created something very beautiful (and well worth a visit, if you can get there)…

text & photos © graham wright 2024

A senior moment…

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Some of you may have noticed a little blunder on my latest post. Entitled ‘Hellebores and more…’ it was about day lilies, which are of course Hemerocallis, and not Hellebore. So many plant names, the Latin all seems to run into one after a while. Or maybe I’m getting old!

Hemerocallis and more…

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It’s just over a week since we came home from twelve nights in Andalucia, to find the Hemerocallis (day lilies) were in full bloom.

I’d like to be able to tell you what varieties we have, but as they were all here in the garden when we arrived, and there were no labels, I don’t know. I’ve an idea the red one above (my favourite) might be ‘Stafford’. But I can’t be sure. I should do some more research. Some of the others we have come in unusual colours. This brown-maroon hellebore is quite impressive…

I’m not so sure about the next, which I would describe as flesh-coloured…

Before we went away, we prepared plants as much as possible, watering those in pots, and moving them into shade. The weather forecast showed mostly dull weather – not too much rain, but not hot. Never trust a weather forecast! We apparently missed the best of the summer, with 27 degrees centigrade one day, no rain (until the day before we got back) and quite a bit of sunshine. Consequentially, we lost some plants. Particularly upsetting is the Eucalyptus Moorei ‘Nana’ that I’d grown on from a tiny plant. Due to time constraints, and the weight of the pot it’s in, I didn’t move it into shade – a bad mistake. Oh course it might yet recover. But it looks dead to me (or as they say in Australia “It’s cactus, mate!) I guess that serves us right for going on holiday.

No-mow May, on the rear lawn, morphed into no-mow June, and now no-mow July…

At this point I would be inclined to cut the grass, but I’ve learnt from previous years that if you leave the grass long you get grasshoppers, and we have. So far, they’re only small. I love to have them hopping around – they really bring the garden to life. I don’t want to obliterate the habitat they need to complete their lifecycle. So we’ll just have to make the most of the meadow look for now.

Elsewhere in the garden, Helleniums are just coming into flower…

And this is Phygelius (again, it pre-dates our arrival, so I don’t know the variety). Not a plant I’ve had much time for until now. It often looks scrappy. And some varieties spread vigorously throughout borders and into the lawn. This one is a bit more shy, and I have to admit, it looks good at the moment…

We’ve planted quite a few Aconitums around the garden, and many are flowering now. I love their spikes of hooded flowers. Most are A. napellus varieties, but there are also some A. carmichaelii, which flower later. I’m still on the lookout for white-flowered varieties for our white bed by the house, after the supposedly white ones I ordered from a well-known nursery (who shall remain un-named) turned out to be blue!

I’m trying to introduce clematis into the garden because, as well as adding height, they look beautiful. But I’ve got my work cut out; probably because they don’t like our thin soil. The white Clematis alpina I put in was fine in it’s first year, but this year, it died. There are three type 3 clematis I’m trying. C. vitiwester, now in its third year, is feeble…

C. ‘Vanessa’ (pale blue) has put on more growth, and it will be interesting to see how the flowers turn out (it doesn’t flower until August).

We also have not one, but four C. perle d’Azur- all divisions from an unwanted plant I dug up from a customer’s garden. It’s early days, but so far they are doing alright…

The geraniums have been good so far. This is, I think, G. ‘Eureka’…

The maintenance has slipped a bit this year. Before we went away, we had our work cut out clearing the spent forget-me-nots we’d glibly allowed to set seed all around the garden (even in the white bed!) Since coming home, I’ve spent many hours pulling up the foxgloves before they spill millions of tiny seeds all over the beds. I’m leaving the white ones to seed, in the hope that we get more of those next year.

Another plant that seems to think it owns the garden is Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’. Unlike the foxgloves and forget-me-nots, this is a plant we bought. We started with two small perennials…

As you can see, it grows very easily from seed. And has huge tap roots. As I’m working my way through the large, main bed, I’m realising that many of the other perennials have been overwhelmed by a combination of foxgloves and verbascum. This bed was looking very overcrowded. It needs both more structure, and more diversity. I’m taking out all of the foxgloves (there are already more coming) and starting to judiciously edit the verbascums (with the intention of removing spent flower spikes from those that remain, before they set seed). It’s already looking better.

Lastly, an oddity. I believe we started out with three plants of Iris chrysographes; a black iris. There is only one left, but it flowered well earlier this year, and now has large seed pods forming. So perhaps I can grow some more on from seed.

text & photos © graham wright2024

Foxgloves

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The foxgloves are in full swing now. These useful biennials seed themselves around all over the garden. Those that are where you don’t want them to be can be pulled out easily (and make a nice clump of greenery to feed to the compost). I probably don’t ‘edit’ them as much as I should.

Here and there a white one pops up. Last year I tried to dead head the purple ones and allow the white to seed, because I prefer the white ones (particularly in the beds where I’m aiming for a white theme). Clearly, I wasn’t very successful.

You can, supposedly, tell what colour flower the seedlings will produce by looking at the stem colour (the purple ones have darker stems and veins) but this hasn’t worked for me. Perhaps I didn’t study them hard enough. The purple forms are pretty too though.

Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis) can self seed too. The year we grew them from seed they filled the borders, but they’ve diminished in the following years (too much ‘editing’?)

These campanulas were here before we arrived, and also seed around freely. I’m not complaining – there’s nothing like having beautiful plants for free!) Like the foxgloves, some of the seedlings turn out white. Most are in shades of lilac.

Keeping on the theme of self-seeders, we planted Phacelia as a green manure one year, and loved the flowers so much we couldn’t bear to dig the plants into the ground. They too come up year after year. The flowers are pretty, long-lived – even in a vase – and have a sweet smell like honey. And the bees absolutely love them.

On a more cultivated note, we were disappointed last year with how quickly the Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ flowers were over. Allium Christophii, on the other hand, lasted much longer. So we bought some bulbs of those last autumn, planted them into pots (thank you Monty Don and Gardeners’ World for that tip) and popped them into the garden in spring.

Here are some more of the highlights at the moment…

Baptisia australis (apparently native to America, not Australia!)
Rosa ‘Claire Austin’
Planting around the pond is filling out – Iris sibirica, hostas and Ligularia dentata ‘Midnight Lady’
Stipa gigantea (oat grass). Close up, you can see the pretty, tiny, yellow flowers
Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ – one of the best roses for fragrance
Salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’ – I’ve given up with ‘Amistad’, because I’ve been unable to over-winter it. ‘Nachtvlinder’ has smaller flowers, but is fully hardy

The garden moves on at pace, and I feel a weight of responsibility to try and fully enjoy each new highlight as it happens, and before it’s over without me having even noticed!

text & photos © graham wright 2024

Roses, At Last…

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It’s been a long time coming, but finally we have roses blooming in the garden. I don’t know why it’s taken so long. We’re quite exposed – the wind blows in across the open fields of North Shropshire. But there’s a native hedge, with hawthorn, blackthorn, crab apple, and others, around the garden. Before we moved here it had been kept cut back to around a metre and a half high, but we’ve let it grow up and fill out, so it should be providing good shelter. This isn’t the warmest area in the country, but neither is it among the coldest. And other plants are no later than elsewhere (fruit trees, for instance). Maybe it’s the soil – dusty, sandy soil wouldn’t be the first choice for a discerning rose. Never mind, they’re here now. This is ‘Gertrude Jekyll’…

And below is ‘Munstead Wood’, another David Austin Rose, though for some reason the company have discontinued it. A shame, because, as you can see, it’s a lovely rose, with a rich burgundy that’s difficult to find elsewhere. I really must try taking some cuttings (don’t tell David Austin!) These pictures were taken during a period of prolonged, mostly heavy rain yesterday, hence the blooms are looking a little sad (wouldn’t you be too?)…

For the past two seasons we’ve had problems with the flowers on our roses. Something, I suspect, is attacking the buds, Sometimes the tops appear to have been nibbled away, so they don’t come out properly. With others, there’s a more fundamental level of damage which results in a completely distorted (often quite small) flower. The yellow rose in the front garden was particularly badly affected last year. Every flower it produced had ragged petals. I’ve yet to identify the culprits. It could be wasps – they’ve been known to munch on rosebuds or, more likely, earwigs – we get a lot of those. But I haven’t caught either of these red-handed. In fact, I’ve not seen any pests actively attacking buds, either during the day, or at night. I’ve not found anything in my mini horticultural library (i.e., my gardening books!) that helps. I may have to ask the RHS (members can contact them for help with specific problems). I pruned off most of the damaged buds and flowers without thinking to take photos, but I managed to find a few that don’t look right this morning. This is a red climbing rose that wasn’t affected last year…

This is a damaged bud doing its best to open on ‘Gertrude Jekyll’…

And this is on the yellow rose (it pre-dates my time in the garden, so I don’t know the variety)…

If any of you have ideas about what might be causing the damage, I’ve love to hear them. It’s always a shame when plants are attacked. But I guess that’s just the way nature works. We have to try and create a balance in the garden and then hope for the best.

Climbing rose ‘Lady of the Lake’

text & photos © graham wright 2024