Thundery storms, hailstones /rain – then sweltering heat! But soon there will be some respite from the heat with a little rain. So far this year the majority of butterflies I have seen have been the orange tips and speckled woods and one small copper (I think) and one red damselfly. Lots of little bumble bees and a few large bumble bees. The tadpoles have grown bigger and I have spotted a few newts. Thankfully I have noticed far fewer slugs this year.
The Jock Tamson’s Gairden (JTG) plants sale went well and most of the plants were sold. I had propagated too many bronze fennel but that is ok as any unsold will be used at JTG. At the sale I got talking to a lovely lady, Naomi, who, after blethering about our mutual love of gardening and plants gave me a few plants from her own garden to try. Thank you Naomi.
At the beginning of May we found more blanket weed in the pond so gave the pond a treatment of Aquaplancton which made it all look a bit cloudy. The tadpoles, frogs and newts didn’t mind at all although we did get some on some lily pads so they look a bit grey. I am still waiting for signs of the Typha I planted a couple of years ago and I planted a variegated iris just at the beginning of the year so I hope they will appear and flower this year.
Amy, my garden help, re-located a huge cyclamen from behind the garage to underneath the spirea where is should do well as it doesn’t get too moist there. We took out a couple of old limbs of the viburnam as it was quite congested and was resting over the purple acer so that some of it’s branches had died off.
Also re-located is the hardy geranium Mavis Simpson which hadn’t really got going in the stumpery so it is now beside the heuchera in the middle bed where it will get a bit more sunshine.
I noticed that there are flowers for the first time on the acer Shirasawanum aureum and they are so tiny but really show up against the bright, golden-green of the leaves. The flowers are produced in small cymes. Soon they will turn into a pair of winged samara (keys). A samara is a winged achene which is one dried, seeded, fruit encased in one wing.
My purple acer, acer palmatum Dissectum Garnet (which is much older) has never flowered whereas next door there is a purple/red acer peaking over the top of the garage which already has the purple/red samaras . I have never seen the flowers on it, and it is getting pretty wide now, growing over both sides of the front of the raised bed and growing down to and along the ground now.
The clematis montana is doing well but has now started to pull off the support at the top. We are soon to start work on the garage roof so it isn’t the right time to do anything about it.
Below the clematis along the back of the garage wall is only a narrow border so it can be tricky to get it to look good. I am trying out nepeta Junior Walker, hardy geranium Vision light pink and silene coronaria on the left hand side just to see how they do. So far the cats have been stomping all over the nepeta so I have had to put an upturned basket on it for protection and this has done the job.
The middle bed is coming on nicely just now with the hebe in flower and the other plants are looking colourful. There are are a few different colours of foliage in the middle bed with silvery white, dark green, bright golden-green, bronzes and purples which can make a lovely palette.
When viewed from another angle.
The new fronds of the athyrium otophorum var. okanum fern look like a right old tangle but they always open up perfectly.
I am so happy that I finally bought some geum Mai Tai as they look so pretty next to the rose and fill up that gap nicely. I did spot another geum right in front of the rose which was looking huge and healthy and wondered what I had planted but it turned out to be a weed (wild geum urbanum) so it was pulled out but now there is a bit of a gap in front of Gertrude Jekyll.
I bought and planted three verbascum Peach champagne last year and only one was in flower at the time (buttery-yellow colour with purple in the centre). However I was not prepared for the colour of the emerging flowers this year. The first two to start flowering started a deep dusky pink, then went peach and finally to the buttery-yellow colour. The last one to flower bypassed the pink stage – it started out peach. Hey ho.
The red peony is looking good right now. Normally when they are looking their best we get a deluge of rain which knocks all the petals off.
The poor old witch hazel had to be taken out as it was indeed totally dead. It didn’t take much pulling and it was very wet at the base. I am now looking for another large shrub or small tree for that gap. There are a few more gaps I could fill in the stumpery but otherwise it is looking fine.
It is so nice to work in the garden just now with the warmth of the sun and the gorgeous scent of the syringia that fills the air.
The view from the patio right now. Over the grey winters we have in Scotland I really miss seeing all this glorious, lush colour. Of course it will all change over the next month.
