We’ve been in this house 9 years now and finally this year it feels like the garden is filling out. The June gap is a thing of the past and garden is full of colour for most of the year. Maybe this year, everything is just all flowering at once as plants such as the Philadelphus, which were over by the beginning of June last year, are at their peak as I write this with their scent wafting across the garden to go with the honeysuckle.
My Peonies are at last starting to flower properly. The ‘Bowl of Beauty’ was stunning this year. I moved it two summers ago to its new place in the garden as I probably planted it too deep previously and it is now thriving. A lesson we can all learn, if a plant isn’t happy where it is, move it. My theory is, if you leave it where it is unhappy it will die, so nothing to lose. They may take a while to settle back in, but worth it in the end. Along with the ‘Bowl of Beauty’ the peony ‘Kansas’ flowered for the first time as well. The perfect colour to pack a punch in the border.
The only downside of the peonies, is that unfortunately don’t flower for long, so there needs to be a real mix within the border to get constant colour. I’m building up my geranium collection, with all hues of pinks, purples and white. The Salvia’s are also coming into flower, the first to flower seems to be ‘Royal Bumble’ which is a bright red one that is in my daughter’s flowerbed. The salvia Caradonna is just starting to flower, and I need to make sure I feed it over the coming weeks. They seem to flower on a heavier soil which explains why they tend to flower for a short amount of time on my light sandier soil. As a result I have bought some seaweed plant food but this time in granular form. I tend to struggle to get the liquid feed far enough around the garden. Fine for containers and pots but when you have a 40m long flowerbed, I need to find a product that is easier to use.
This month is all about deadheading, the idea is that deadheading stops plants going to seed and promotes more flowers, so I’ve spent hours deadheading geraniums and roses over the last few weeks in clients gardens as well as my own.
July and there are signs of the echinacea’s being on their way, and are budding up nicely. They tend to be short lived perennials and so it is always a good excuse to buy a few more. I bought Echinacea Prairie Splendor Rose and Echinacea Pow Wow Wild Berry in Longacres last week. They will flower from July / August through to the first frosts and are great late summer flowers to accompany the agapanthus and Aster Frikartii Monch throughout the flowerbeds.
The foxgloves are nearer the end of flowering and in the spring I planted some Digitalis Alba in my wooded area to draw the eye down the garden. They created a real focal point and the pure white of the flowers was stunning. Last month I also planted a foxglove in the border by the front door and it is pure perfection. It must have been a slightly different variety as the flowers go all around the plant. One to try and collect seeds from and sow around the garden I feel.
I’ve recently taken on a new client who has a wonderful garden full of azaleas, rhododendrons and is on a steep slope. This brings new opportunities to learn about alpine plants to go with the planting style, as there are rockeries and retaining walls full of planting pockets. I can see time at Longacres ahead looking into the great range of alpines and seeing which plants would best fit in with the planting style. Gardening is full of opportunities to keep learning which is an aspect of it I really enjoy and keeps the brain ticking over.
For now, between the showers it is time to get out and do some deadheading, stake up the plants that are flopping in the rain and look at what is to come with echinops, asters, agapanthus and echinaceas.
Really enjoyed reading this lots of useful hints and tips and the photos are stunning