Finally some rain! We got a good down pour overnight on the 25th July and a few showers since then so good news for the gardens up here in Scotland. Although there are dreadful wildfires going on in Europe which are desperately in need of rain to help put the fires out but the heat wave continues in France and Spain and England. There is a major wildfire going on in the Cairngorms in Scotland too.
I have been searching for a few small trees to plant in the spaces where a few died last year with some success. I went for another witch hazel for the stumpery area but couldn’t find the one I wanted but settled for Hamamelis intermedia ‘Arnold promise’. It had two labels on it though: one said it has light yellow, slightly sour smelling flowers during January and February and the other said: it has fragrant, bright yellow flowers and blooms a month later than other witch hazels. I am after a couple of Amalanchier trees too (Laevis ‘snowflake’ and Candensis ‘October flame’): snowflake to replace the cherry tree on the patio and October flame for the back border.
The iris Jane Philips in the side border are just annoying me as they look a bit tatty for most of the year and only look good when they flower so I am thinking of replacing them with the erigeron schneewittchen, which I have in a pot on the patio, as it has held onto its tall daisy flowers for a long time and will hopefully clump up nicely.
The other day we heard a commotion while we were eating our dinner. It was 2 pigeons flapping about in the conservatory having wandered in through the open door and then panicked when they couldn’t find the still open door. One must have landed on a cactus leaving behind a lot of downy feathers. We often get small birds like robins and tits popping in and occasionally a squirrel but it is the pigeons that make the most mess. We are forever rescuing butterflies and bees and the odd damselfly too, but the hoverflies just hang around at the top of the roof and sadly they can never find their way out again.
I finally got a photo of a meadow brown butterfly feeding on the loosestrife at the back of the pond. There are loads of white butterflies about but they haven’t sat still enough for me to identify what they are. They are most probably large whites and orange tips.
I have also seen peacock butterflies, red admirals, spotted wood, holly blues and commas, mainly on the house wall, but again haven’t managed a photo this year.
It is that time of year we can start to collect seeds for next year and I love my old snappy tray to collect them in. It is meant for using in crafts for messy things like when using embossing powder or glitters etc or even jewellery making but it comes in handy when collecting and decanting seeds. I normally keep the collected seed in those tiny brown coin envelopes in a nice dry room but I have also had success using those old plastic film canisters with lids but your seeds have to be well dried before using them so they don’t rot or sweat inside the canister. The funnel on the bottom corner help pour the seeds into the small brown paper envelopes.
The poppy seeds were the first this year with the astrantias coming along now. I have loads of collected seeds that I keep in a metal tin and I often try previous years collected seed first and if they don’t germinate I go onto the newer ones. I often swap the seeds with pals or the Duddingston Kirk Garden Club members. I do let some plants self seed too (like the snowflake primula and honesty) in the hope that they come up without me having to sow them. With the foxgloves: I collect the seed and then sprinkle them where I would like them to come up. I still save a few just in case.
Every time I wander around the garden, usually when on slug patrol, I keep finding things that need doing, and usually things that I can’t do myself. The pond is looking very congested as there was only 1 pond lily there but now there are a few self seeded so I tried to pull one out the other day and it just snapped and I battered my already sore arthritic knuckles off the wheelchair push rim. So I needed help (Amy) bringing a few of them out of the pond. At the right hand side of the pond there is rather a lot of cotton grass, random other self seed grasses and a large rush which has expanded over the years and also self seeded. In amongst all that are a few iris plants which don’t stand a chance in flowering. I may take the rush out and put in a flowering rush: Botomus umbellatus (which isn’t actually a rush). The raised bed has quite a few areas where the bees have tunnelled down from the top and made large holes which just funnels rain water straight through and out through the holes in the wall which were made for plants. I did go around the raised bed just after the rain the other day to mulch it, but what I really need to do is put a plant in the top holes and try and plug up the side/bottom holes just now until the plant roots mesh together and plug the top holes properly. (The dry-ish mulch was just coming out the bottom holes).
Now the Japanese anemones have started to flower, and still in flower are the agastache, potentilla, nepeta, some hardy geraniums, persicaria, achilea, heuchera, verbena, the orange geum, rose campion, oregano, and a couple of hellebores have just started to flower. The white astrantia still in flower but that is going over now., whereas the red one hasn’t flowered at all due to the slugs and snails. The marigolds sitting on top of the half barrel are flowering away quite happily as long as the slugs and snails don’t find them. In the pond there are still the purple loosestrife and a couple of the pond lilies. The irises didn’t flower yet again – not even the new ones at the front of the pond.
The view from the patio: I have left the clumps of water lily by the edge of the pond to allow any beasties to get back into the pond.
