It hasn’t been the nicest of summers so far. Lots of rain, and sometimes unseasonally cool. I don’t mind the coolness but the lack of sunshine is a bit depressing.
It’s been a strange year for the garden, with the very warm/hot and sunny and dry April, which did hold back some of the early growth. for example the Astilbe, which usually puts on a lot of early growth, looks quite stunted. It hasn’t stopped it from flowering though, and with less foliage and more flowers it looks better, it doesn’t dominate the area around the small pond.
The poppies have been a total wash out, the new seed I bought failed to germinate and has left a fairly large sized poppy hole in the garden. A few stragglers, self-seeded from last year, have come up, but they’re pretty weedy looking.
The foxgloves that were planted last year, rather surprisingly got munched into oblivion by the slugs and snails. I really thought with all that digoxin in their leaves that the slugs would give them a wide berth. Not so.
I’ve got some morning glories on the go. A mixture, some old grandpa ott’s the dirty purple variety, which seem to self-seed every year, Flying saucers; some self-seeded, caprice – a pinky white variety, and the old favourite of mine the Heavenly blue. The Heavenly blues are probably the hardest to grow, they don’t like the cold, slugs and snails love them when they’re young, and they seem to be fairly slow growing. But if the do get going they go wild and can easily reach 15 feet or more. Their flowers are the largest, and the blue is truly heavenly.
I haven’t seen so many bees this year, perhaps due to the weather being so grey and rainy that ‘ve not been out in the garden so much this year. The geraniums are really doing well, the Johnson blue being the most prolific, but others with varying shades of colour have also done quite well.
Columbine, aquilegia, has been magnificent, the old self-seeders have done quite well as usual, but the newer varieties that were introduced last year have been stunning. Long-spur varieties with a really gorgeous mix of colours. I think I have a few photos somewhere, so will share when i find them.
Lastly, Cacti… ah they deserve a post of their own….
leaf's 360 has risen from the dust 