Garden Bloggers Blooms Day August 2012

In a small garden it's impossible to grow the diversity of flowering plants that I would if I had more room.  So for the August 2012 Garden Bloggers Blooms Day, kindly hosted by May Dreams Gardens, there are bound to be plants I've illustrated before.  No matter, here's a good sample of what's in flower at the moment.

I'll start with two Agapanthus.  These are both deciduous hybrids, hardy plants - unlike their evergreen cousins - but still desirable.  The paler blue, 'Bressingham Blue', I've had for years, while the more impressive darker blue 'Northern Star' is a more recent acquisition.  No Agapanthus is a particularly fast spreader but this one looks quite vigorous and I look forward to seeing a good clump of this developing in years to come.  I'm revamping the border where it sits this autumn and I think I'll underplant it with some of the bulbs of Allium 'Globemaster' that I've been growing on the allotment for cut flowers.

Agapanthus 'Bressingham Blue'

Agapanthus 'Northern Star'

With my slug and snail population ever eager to munch their way through anything soft and fleshy I have difficulty with Dahlias but 'Procyon' has run the gauntlet and is now producing quite a good display.  I do like the colour combination - and it survives my winters in situ.

Dahlia 'Procyon'

Behind it in the border is Fuchsia 'Mrs Popple'.  I've written about this one in a previous post but it's now in full flower and dripping with it's relatively large scarlet and orange flowers.

Fuchsia 'Mrs Popple'

In the little pool garden Hedychium 'Stephen' is just beginning to open the lowest few flowers on the first of the eight spikes produced by the clump this year.  The copious rain this year (including today!) has helped to bring these to flowering a week or so earlier than normal.  They'll be in full bloom in  a week or so but this gives me the opportunity to show the delicate beauty of the individual flowers, rather than the massed assemblage of the flower spike.  They won't last long - the end of August will see them over - but they are so attractive in both foliage and flower that I'd always make space for them wherever I gardened.  Now, if only my other four hedychiums will be as obliging...

Hedychium 'Stephen' - individual flowers

Up the cherry tree Passiflora caerulea is busily wending its annual way.  It was late in flower this year, a direct result of our cold summer, but at least it survived and is now showing flowers both close to the ground and 15ft / 5 metres up in the branches of the tree.  It's very attractive to bumble bees as well.

Passiflora caerulea

I grow four hydrangeas in the garden but the star of the show at the moment is Hydrangea aspera var sargentiana.  Big, dark green, velvety leaves are a perfect complement to the heads of purple florets, each surrounded by a pure white set of sterile florets designed to attract insects.  It's a fabulous plant, though it does have two problems.  Firstly, the flower heads go over quite quickly and loose their attraction.  Secondly, it can make quite a tall, gawky shrub - with too many of the flower heads in the upper canopy.  For the shot below I mounted the camera and wide angle lens on my monopod and shot downwards from the 10ft / 3 metre level.  Fine for a photo, not so fine for normal viewing.  I feel a heavy pruning coming on.

Hydrangea aspera var sargentiana

 

Just to the south of the Hydrangea, in the little pond that gives title to the garden area I call the pool garden, Nymphea 'Escarboule' lays its flat carpets of circular lily pads and pops up the occassional flower.  I love the intricacy of water lilies - even if it is too big for the confines of its home.

Nymphea 'Escarboule'

I added a shot of Abutilon 'Patrick Synge' last month but since then I've added a few more shots to my collection and the one below is one of my favourites.  It really shows the dangling bells of this lax shrub.

Abutilon 'Patrick Synge'

In a shadier part of the garden Acanthus mollis has flowered.  It doesn't do it every year - too shady - but I grow it for the foliage rather than the flowers.  Even so I'm not averse to enjoying the tall spikes and their rather spiny white flowers when they do develop.

Acanthus mollis

Not far away from this is Roscoea x beesiana, a little white flowered ginger which produces successive orchid like flowers over a six week period.  Relatively new to the garden, it will take a while to produce a clump as large as the R.purpurea in the front garden, but it's a welcome addition to a shady corner nonetheless.

Roscoea x beesiana

I've had to rescue Beesia calthifolia from the open ground.  My gastropods were destroying it at an unsustainable rate so pot growing was the only option.  A shame.  It's a pretty little woodlander, with nicely mottled, glossy leaves.  But at least it's given me a better chance to appreciate the tiny white flowers that are carried all summer long.

Beesia calthifolia

In the front garden Phygelius 'Yellow Trumpet' is producing its second flush of the year.  I have to be careful with this one.  Unlike other Phygelius, 'Yellow Trumpet' is a much larger, stronger shrub and is inclined to sucker.  Not uncontrollably - but it does need watching.  I usually get three good flushes - in late May / early June; August and early October, with intermittent flowering in between to provide interest throughout the warmer months.

Phygelius 'Yellow Trumpet'

I bought Epimedium franchettii 'Brimstone Butterfly' last year as part of my restocking programme after previous winter losses.  For last September's Blooms Day I illustrated it with the shot below and commented that this was the first epimedium I'd grown that flowered in summer as well as spring.  I put it down to settling in to the  garden during its first year.  Well, it's repeated the habit and has continued to produce flower stems through the summer.

Epimedium franchettii 'Brimstone Butterfly'

Though not, alas, against the colourful background of its spring foliage.  The red hues don't persist.

Epimedium franchettii 'Brimstone Butterfly' - spring foliage and flowers

There are quite a lot of other plants in bloom at the moment but most I either illustrated last month or will still be in flower in September so I'll leave them till then.  In the meantime I hope you've enjoyed browsing through what's flowering on a cold, windy and wet August 15th here in Plymouth.

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day July 2012

Another month, another opportunity to show what's flowering in my small Plymouth garden.   Rather than illustrate everything that's in flower - at the height of summer there are a lot of plants in bloom and I need to reserve some for next month - I thought I'd illustrate some of my hotter colours.  Reds and oranges are quite prominent at the moment and really do stand out even in the prevailing gloom of this sodden July.

Abutilon 'Patrick Synge'

In the shot above Abutilon 'Patrick Synge' drips from the lax branches that have been threaded through my plant of Acca sellowiana.  It will go on with a display like this till well into the autumn.

Next up is Begonia 'Bonfire', a variety derived from B.boliviensis.  This one surprised me by surviving outside last winter.  It was fairly mild, I admit - but I recorded -7C in the front garden on more than one night, so the tuber was probably frozen in it's pot.  And now it's back, better than last year.  I'll take a bit more care this winter.

Begonia 'Bonfire'

I have a liking for South African bulbous plants and three are making a prominent show in the garden at the moment.  Crocosmia 'Lucifer' I've written about before.  I've thinned out its numbers since last year but I still have way too much in the garden.  But, oh it is beautiful.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer'

Second of the trio is a gladiolus I bought so long ago I've lost the name.  With me its completely hardy, coming through the severe winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11 unscathed.  It doesn't multiply much - I've got half a dozen flowering size corms, about what I started with - but it does survive to make a nice vertical statement in the rear garden.

Unknown gladiolus

Finally, Watsonia 'Stanford Scarlet' completes the South African trio.  I bought this from the inspirational National Trust garden at Coleton Fishacre a good few years back and it's thrived in the garden ever since.  This is one of the tall ones - about 4ft / 120cm here - with evergreen leaves.  It's getting crowded now so I'll divide it after flowering.

Watsonia 'Stanford Scarlet'

In the front garden Phormium tenax 'Variegata' is flowering.  This is a massive plant, with flat rosettes of strappy leaves that reach 8ft / 240cm tall.  It doesn't flower every year but has provided me with three stems this year.  I've watched them slowly grow for the last two months, thick, dark canes that have shot up to about 12ft / 3.5metres, the top part producing sprays of surprisingly delicate flowers.  Here's a couple of close ups.
 

Phormium tenax 'Variegata'

Phormium tenax 'Variegata'

I've been trying to create a 'orange-red' border in a small bed in the rear garden.  On paper it sounds good.  The English shrub rose 'Summer Song' is backed by Fuchsia 'Karl Hartweg'.  Alongside is a plant of the hybrid busy lizzie, Impatiens auricoma x bicaudata.  Next to that is Cordyline 'Red Star', fronted by Fuchsia boliviana 'Alba', the whole being edged with a border of Begonia 'Non Stop Apricot'.  In practice neither of the Fuchsias have flowered yet, the rose flowers have been trashed by this year's incessant summer rain and one of the five begonias has turned out to be red rather than apricot.  No matter.  The impatiens looks good and the other four begonias are now flowering well.

Impatiens auricoma x bicaudata

Impatiens auricoma x bicaudata

Begonia 'Non Stop Apricot'

The impatiens and begonias will need to be brought in for the winter but that will give me a chance to add a suitably coloured martagon lily to the bed and install Tropaeolum speciosum, one of my favourite climbers, to run up the sasanqua camellia that backs the planting.

Speaking of climbers I have a fond spot for Thunbergia, having grown quite a few different species and varieties in my gardening career.  This year I've added Thunbergia 'Red and Orange' to grow up a small climbing frame against the sunny house wall.  Cold and rain haven't helped but it's flowering now and should get better through the rest of the summer and into the autumn.

Thunbergia 'Red and Orange'

The final red flowered plant I'm going to illustrate is another of my day lilies.  This one is Hemerocallis 'Berlin Red', quite a tall one, with good clusters of large flowers at the 3-4ft / 90-120cm level.  The red certainly makes a statement in the garden.

Hemerocallis 'Berlin Red'

As always, my thanks to the May Dreams Garden blog for hosting the monthly garden bloggers' blooms day.

A fine June evening

It's been hot all day.  At least 25 C in the shelter of my south facing rear garden.  And at 20:55 it's still very pleasant.  Warm still air, a wireless network and a laptop means I can blog directly from the garden.  Add  a cool beer close at hand and I'm happy.

One thing I always feel at this time of year is anticipation.  I can see buds forming on my hemerocallis and agapanthus, the annuals and tender perennials I use for later summer interest are bulking up well and starting to show a little colour and my white macrophylla hydrangea - I think it's Mme Emile Mouillere - is beginning it's long period of summer flowering.  I'm glad it's survived the rigours of the last two winters - and a period of neglect when I've had not time to tend the garden.

I'm equally glad to see the survival of another old favourite.  The abutilons with pendant, bell like flowers are far more tender than hydrangeas.  I bought this one as 'Hinton Seedling' many years ago and it's survived in the garden ever since.  Even the latest harsh winter only defoliated the plant and caused some die back of the stems but it's recovered well enough to produce its first 4 cm long flower of the season.  Once it starts flowering it doesn't stop till late autumn.  I've even had flowers at Christmas.  I took this specific photograph a few years back but every year the display is equally as good. 

Abutilon 'Hinton Seedling' ? or is it 'Patrick Synge'

The problem is, it may not be 'Hinton Seedling' but another variety, 'Patrick Synge'.  The last few years have seen an explosion of flower pictures on the Internet and, through Google Images, the ability to quickly flick between search results for comparison.  Great for identifying unknown plants and varieties - even if the the naming is not always accurate.  Which has confirmed the suspicions I developed a few years back in a National Trust garden when I saw my plant labelled 'Patrick Synge'  However, to add to the complications there is another very similar - to judge by the photos - variety called 'Wisley Red'.  The problem is I've never seen all three together to be able to accurately name my plant, so for the moment, I tell anyone who asks that it's 'Patrick Synge'.  Maybe.  Perhaps I should have bought 'Kentish Belle' which does have the the merit of being pretty distinctive.

Abutilon 'Kentish Belle'

One day I'll solve the conundrum.  In the meantime the plant doesn't care.  It's busily extending it's thin stems upwards ready for another extended season of colour.