It always amazes me when the first plants bloom in January. Despite the cold, wet and windy weather delicate looking blooms appear without fail each year. The first Snowdrops are flowering now and in my garden one tough shrub has been flowering all winter.
Y
ay! It’s officially Autumn.
I stepped outside in the early morning sunshine to take a close look at the tall grasses in the Gravel Garden. They are truly beautiful. I was also delighted to see that a small shrub that I planted a couple of years ago has at last produced a good show of flowers.
It’s taken a while… but it was definitely one of my star plants today.
There are some plants I wouldn’t like to be without in my garden and this is one of them. I love orange flowers… in fact I love everything about Heleniums. In bud they have just a hint of what’s to come. Then the petals unfurl and the huge central disk expands and attracts bees galore.
The plants in the Summer border are in full bloom now. Many of them are great for beneficial insects such as bees and hover flies.
One of my favourites is Echinops ritro.
This is a variety called ‘ Veitch’s Blue’. It’s cool silver in bud opening to the most intense blue. It’s dramatic and architectural but also undemanding and very easy to grow.
It’s that time of year again… Wimbledon, Hampton Court Flower Show and sunshine every day… It must be summer!Your favourite summer tipple, Gin and Tonic, Pimms or a glass of Rose wine are enhanced by the addition of beautiful borage flowers.
The Martagon Lilies are just beginning to flower now. I collect the seed when it’s ripe and spread it around the Bluebell wood. I’ve been told that it takes anything from five to seven years for these plants to grow large enough to flower so I just scatter the seeds and let nature do the rest. It seems to work… we have hundreds of lilies now in various shades of pink, some speckled, some plain and a few pure white ones.
All the best country gardens have poppies of one sort or another. They may be the ephemeral hardy annuals which seed freely and give a burst of colour for a short while in early June like these Papaver somniferum. Alternatively they may be Oriental poppies which produce a much sturdier bushy plant and usually flower all summer. Whichever you choose, they are all easy to grow.
This rose is already flowering in the Summer Border.
It’s an arching shrub about nine feet high and is smothered with single deep pink flowers in June. The bees go mad for it, even on an overcast day like today I could hear them buzzing as they competed for the best blooms …
A beautiful vigorous climber… Clematis montana Elizabeth is easy to grow and has pale pink flowers with a vanilla scent. Eventual height and spread is 30 metres x 10 metres so you’ll need plenty of space for this Clematis. Climbs with tendrils.
There is nothing quite like the sight of an English woodland full of Bluebells. So beautiful it takes your breath away.
May is the best time to see Bluebells in full flower. You can grow them in your garden…however they can spread rapidly and may quickly become a nuisance in small spaces…