hellebore | Pullingweeds

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

It’s now officially spring, and though you wouldn’t know it from the weather, new growth is breaking out across the garden, mostly in the form of spring bulbs. There are still some snowdrops around, but they’re fading fast. Various types of crocuses are out now (though the Crocus tomasinianus in the lawn have been and gone).

We’ve got various clumps of the small, early, tete-a-tete daffodils; most of which were in the garden before we arrived . Most have been relocated as we’ve been implementing the new design.

I rescued a number of dark-flowered hellebores from the back of overgrown beds, and reset them as under-planting to hydrangeas and a paperbark maple…

Elsewhere, this is what we refer to as our woodland – a small patch of ground in the shade of the house and the chicken enclosure, beneath an unusually aged lilac tree. It’s where we amalgamated many of the rhododendrons that were scattered around the garden when we arrived, along with a few pieris. Our soil is neutral rather than acidic; sandy, and not exactly humus-rich, so it’s perhaps rather surprising that ericaceous plants seem to do so well in this area.

One large section of the lilac died last year, and I suspect the rest of the plant won’t be far behind it. We dug out huge quantities of the ‘bootlaces’ (technically rhizamorphs) of honey fungus that flourished in this area, around a decaying tree stump, but inevitably we couldn’t get them all. We have the most common form of honey fungus (Armillaria gallica) which is very good at finishing off trees and shrubs that are weak, or coming to the end of their life. So I’ve planted a replacement in the space that has opened up: a Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender silhouette’. This is a columnar tree, so it gives height without taking up too much space. It has glossy lobed leaves which turn the most amazing colours in autumn. Some sources claim it’s resistant to honey fungus (although the RHS says it’s susceptible!)

Many of our new trees, including the fruit trees in the orchard (it’s an orchard if you’ve got five trees, and we’ve got six, even if they are small) are budding. This is a plum. Last year it produced only three plums. If the buds are anything to go by, it should be a better harvest this year…