Category Archives: Flower garden

A winter flowering

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

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One day last week was bright, dry, and mild and so inviting for a gardener who has been kept indoors by the horribly damp weather. I tidied up the fronts of some of the borders, taking out all the dead and dying material but dared not step onto the soil as the clay is still very wet. On the whole the garden is not looking too bad and the grass was beautifully green and lush.

Just looking around to see what was flowering I found primulas, mahonia, Viburnum tinus, and the delightful Winter flowering jasmine.

Winter flowering jasmine

Winter flowering jasmine

I was surprised to see a mauve flower growing out of the picea, which turned out, on close inspection, to be a climbing bloom of Vinca minor.

Vinca minor in Picea

A small Witch hazel ‘Orange Peel’ is starting to look rather pretty

Witch hazel 'Orange Peel'

Witch hazel ‘Orange Peel’

Today in the garden

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Flower garden, Fungi, Gardening, Greenhouse

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I have had a lovely morning in the garden. The weather is warmish and with hazy sun. The dew is prolific.

I was inspecting my beds in the usual fashion when I noticed this very pretty fungus

Stropharia aeruginosa

It took me a while to identify it using ‘Roger’s mushrooms’ website, which I can recommend for its useful search feature and the helpful pictures uploaded by members.

http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

Interestingly one of the pictures uploaded was from Milton Keynes, quite close to us, and looking absolutely like mine so I am sure it is identified correctly.

I then spent some time trying to reduce the population of lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) in a border. This plant is so useful for spring colour and ground cover but sometimes it gets a little out of control and it was swamping everything else. The self-seeded hellebores and the High Sheriff roses now have space to grow.

Overgrown with lungwort

Following this I needed a less demanding job to finish the morning. I pulled the weeds out of two pots, near to the kitchen door and behind a herb area, which have some spring bulbs in them. I added Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’ to one and Narcissus ‘W.L.Milner’ to the other, so I will have more February to March colour right outside the kitchen window. I already have a patch with the delightful and ubiquitous Narcissus ‘Tete a Tete’, which is a bright yellow, so ‘W.P.Milner’ with its pale yellow flowers will be a good contrast.

Yesterday I had sown some Cerinthe seeds in the greenhouse and today when I went in I found that mice had eaten a hole in the packet. They had munched through quite a few packets, so all the seeds are now safely in the house. It is rather touching to think that the greenhouse is mine in the day and theirs at night, although it won’t be quite so interesting for them now.

Stars on clay

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

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When I look around the garden at this time of year I see some of the real stars performing at their best. Box, lavender, repeat-flowering roses, sedums, primula, and Japanese anemones are probably the most notable.  The soil here is heavy clay and although some of the beds, mostly vegetable, have been improved over the years, others have had no special treatment at all.  

Roses, Japanese anemones, sedum

Bergenia does well here and is having a bit of a flower before the winter.

Bergenia in its modest autumn mode

Some plants have been specatacular failures over the seven years we have gardened here, for example, Viburnum davidii, penstemon, echinacea, clematis, although this may not be entirely due to the clay soil. In fact, I am determined to win with clematis next year and I will have to provide better conditions for it.

The Royal Horticultural Society suggests quite a small range of plants for clay soils but there are plenty that I do not currently have. I think I should treat myself to some Primula florindae, Iris laevigata, and Houttuynia cordata, and must take their advice and not plant until spring so that I don’t lose anything in the cold, damp winter.

The joys of marjoram

02 Thursday Aug 2012

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Marjoram ‘Acorn Bank’

Marjoram’s Latin name Origanum means ‘joy of the mountains’. There are at least 7 different species of marjoram and many cultivars.

Marjoram is a great value plant for many reasons. Bees and butterflies love it and it flowers prolifically. The flowers are not the most showy but they provide good pale pinks and whites in the border for long periods. Although it is generally recommended for dryish and sandy soils it grows like a weed on my heavy clay.

In the kitchen marjoram provides good flavour in soups, stews and salads and it can be drunk as a tisane. All marjorams, but sweet, knotted marjoram in particular, are great in cheese (especially cream cheese) sandwiches. Marjoram is heavily used in Mediterranean cookery. Sweet marjoram has the best flavour in my view and Greek marjoram is also noted for its flavour. Owing to the strength of the herb all marjorams should be used judiciously in cooking to begin with.

Gerard’s herbal of 1597 prescribes marjoram for those subject to ‘overmuch sighing’. Juliette de Bairacli Levy in her ‘Herbal handbook for everyone’ recommends its use for digestive complaints, sore throats and coughs.

Pot marjoram (Origanum onites) seeds itself freely and will cover any gap in your border.

Golden marjoram is similarly useful and has beautiful yellow/green foliage making a beautiful tight clump early in the year. When it flowers it grows more leggy, as you can see above.

Golden marjoram before it flowers

Two particularly attractive cultivars include ‘Acorn Bank’ illustrated above and ‘Country Cream’ with its variegated leaves.

Marjoram ‘Country Cream’

The pleasures of small things

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Flower arrangements, Flower garden, Herbs

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Over the last three days we have had some good, dry, almost warm weather. After mowing the lawn the garden looked quite respectable. The flowers seem quite unphased by all the rain and are blooming as usual. Even the roses did not seem to be as spoiled as I would have expected.

I went and picked a small bunch of flowers for our visitor’s bedroom and was pleased to see how beautiful the most unobtrusive flowers can look in a vase. How well pale yellow and mauve go together.

This arrangement consists of Marjoram ‘Acorn Bank’, curry plant, several types of pot marjoram, an annoying weed, name unknown but shown in the top right of the picture in pale pink, although it is usually purple and bachelor’s buttons or Santolina chamaecyparissus. The button-like flowers of the latter, so easy to ignore, especially as the plant grows straggly, are actually exquisite when they open out.

Santolina chamaecyparissus flowers

Roses win the day

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Flower garden, Vegetable gardening

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I returned from a week’s holiday to find the garden very verdant, apart from the vegetables, many of which have been decimated by the prodigious slug population. The potatoes have not grown and are going yellow and the broad beans are still small and although they have flowers I do not expect much of them. The strawberries, however, are ripening well and only a few are succumbing to mildew.

In the flower garden the roses are performing admirably. The hybrid tea ‘High Sheriff’ is in its beautiful first flush.

Rosa ‘High Sheriff’

I hope I can save it from the black spot that disfigured it so badly last year.

Here are some ‘Harlow Carr’ blooms picked for the house.

Rosa ‘Harlow Carr’

Meanwhile ‘Wedding Day’ is doing what it does best, scrambling through a tree.

R. ‘Wedding Day’

Can you identify the hardy geraniums?

14 Thursday Jun 2012

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At this time of year our main border would look pretty bare without the wondrous hardy geraniums to add colour at the front of the border. Up above, the self-seeded aquilegia and welsh poppies and the reliable red valerian are performing but they are not enough on their own. We have six geranium varieties and I have had difficulty identifying some of them. These days I keep a record of new plants but years ago I didn’t. I would be grateful for any identification of these lovely plants.

Probably Geranium x magnificum

We have two pink varieties. Both have quite small flowers and one has curved-back petals. The latter will flower throughout the summer.

Our white geranium looks very much like G. Kashmir White and very pretty it is too, shining out from the shade.

All these geraniums have been divided and spread around the garden, but G. x magnificum is definitely the most successful. Lately I have added Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingwerson’s Variety’ and Geranium phaeum ‘Album’ in another border where they are doing well in their first year.

After this flowering I will trim them back and hope they will flower again later in the year, allbeit not so prolifically.

Roses, roses, roses

11 Monday Jun 2012

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Unknown rose with wonderful scent possibly from the County Series

When I was young I really disliked showy flowers like roses, tulips, and peonies. But now I love them, especially roses. Unfortunately the list in this garden is not as extensive as I would like because I can’t think of new locations for them. Most of our roses are climbers or ramblers.  We have Cecile Brunner (climbing), Madame Gregoire Staechelin (known as Spanish Beauty), the strong rambler Frances E Lester which I have located in entirely the wrong place, Adelaide D’Orleans charming us over the rose arch, New Dawn which I pruned in spring and has masses of buds, and Wedding Day growing up the fence and into a cherry tree.
 

Frances E Lester

A real favourite English Rose is Harlow Carr. It performs so well all summer and the smell is divine. There is little Hampshire from the County Series, another star performer. I couldn’t resist the rose from my native county. Little White Pet was not happy in a slightly shady spot and I have moved it into full sun so hopefully it will do well this year. A kind friend who was clearing out her very fine garden gave us four roses last autumn. Two are called Cottage Rose and I have no idea what the others are, it will be interesting to see.

Harlow Carr

Perhaps not quite so beautiful, but excellent value as they flower most of the summer, are three little patio roses I grew from seed about 10 years ago. They are getting quite bushy now and will suffer severe cutting back from time to time.

Just by the front door is a wonderful yellow rose with a fantastic scent and glossy foliage of a disease free nature. Next to it is an Iceberg and it is such a pity they are so vulnerable to black spot. The final rose, a hybrid tea, also given to us, is High Sheriff. The flowers open out a beautiful burnished orangey/gold and age to a salmony pink.

April 29th 2012

29 Sunday Apr 2012

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The countryside is looking so beautiful with its variety of fresh greens and the blackthorn and wild cherry blossom. It reminds me afresh of the beginning of Robert Browning’s charming poem:

Oh to be in England
Now that April’s there
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England, now.

Looks like today is going to be a very wet one but, obviously, I can’t complain because we need the rain so much.  I am really pleased with the garden at present and particularly the east border, very much a spring feast, and am still filling it with odd things including pulmonaria, forgetmenot, welsh poppies, moved from other places. The bulbs have been excellent. I loved the Crocus ‘Cream Beauty’. The new daffodils are all looking very pretty – I especially liked Cottinga – and the erythronium are now in bloom. I also need to get some summer plants in there. Now I must add a mulch of chipped bark that has been waiting on our drive for a few months. We reshingled the path a couple of months ago. It was a ragbag of any old stones and gravel and is now uniform in colour and texture.

Part of the east border - a work in progress

  The rest of the flower/shrub garden 

Daphne odora was good value back in March. It was planted about 4 years ago and flowered for the first time last year. Mahonia japonica ‘Bealei’ has been very pretty this year. Unfortunately my Daphne mezereum only had one flower on it – very disappointing. Does anyone know whether it needs any special care? Bergenia and pulmonaria are both going well. The relatively new Exochorda macrantha ‘The Bride’ is starting to look fetching. All the forsythias were fantastic value as always. Vinca minor is performing well as ground cover near to the larger pond. I am worried that my lavender, inside the box hedging, is not going to do well this year. It has become very woody and probably needs replacing.

The annual/perennial seeds are germinating/growing on in the new mini greenhouse – coreopsis, rudbeckia, dahlia, anise hyssop, aubretia. I only really discovered growing flowers from seed in the last few years and it gives me enormous pleasure as I hope it does the bees and butterflies.