The Rural Gardener - A Trip down Memory Lane

Anybody reading my previous blogs, will perhaps remember me confessing to inadvertantly deleting the photos from some of the earlier posts! I have managed to find most of the missing pictures and have now ‘re illustrated ‘ a couple of blogs from the March archive. http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener 

When looking at photos taken over the course of a few months, it is always amazing to be reminded of just how much a garden changes throughout the year! It also served as a reminder that I originally agreed to write the blog for a trial period of six months, to see if anybody out there would read it. As this six months is drawing to a close after a couple more posts, I would be very grateful for any feedback at all. Even a quick, ‘hello’ as I have no other means of knowing if the blog is of interest to anybody other than my mother, who seems to be the main comment contributer!  

Much as I appreciate her support, it does seem slightly ridiculous answering questions on here which she could ask me on the phone…

As August passes it’s halfway point and the days seem to shorten quite dramatically, it is difficult not to feel a slight sense of melancholy now and then. Somehow the summer which felt like forever, can now be measured in remaining weeks. The dew on the lawn, swirls of leaves from the odd trees that seem to let go in the slightest breeze and craneflies fluttering about in their rather half hearted pathetic fashion at the kitchen window. All of these things add to the feeling of something finishing.

I was gardening at home the other evening, until everything around me was in black and grey. Identifying and snipping at the correct stems was becoming difficult - as close to the thrill of gambling as I ever get! I finally gave up when the midges became intolerable, to find it was still not long after 9pm. I’ve stopped taking the hayfever tablets and all around us, the sound of combines and the sight of balers popping out round bales heralds harvest time.

Ofcourse these familiar pangs of summer passing it’s peak don’t usually bother me for long, I actually enjoy late summer and Autumn, once I have resigned myself to their arrival!

The garden can look a little tired in August, perennials and shrubs which have finished flowering and those with foliage looking slightly tatty can soon give a neglected feel to the place. It is still worth cutting back perennials that don’t have any value as winter interest in the form of interesting seedheads or stems. If you haven’t done so already, cut back Astrantias, Alchemilla mollis,  and Geraniums that have finished flowering now and they should still have time to form a fresh crown of foliage before too long. Trim Lavandula sp  once they have finished flowering, cutting off the flower stems and into the foliage produced this season.

To end on a positive note about mid August, here are a few of the good bits!!

Working in the herb garden at Moat House last week was a pleasure, it was alive with butterflies and bees and the scent produced from clipping the chamomile took me back to pre college days working at Temple Newsham!

Many annuals are at their best by now, I love Nicotiana Tinkerbell F1 with it’s dusky pink flowers which are lime green on the back and have blue pollen. Nigella damascena has wonderful flowers, (I prefer the blue to white or pink) pretty feathery foliage and good seedheads. Simply leave them where they are and you should have plants year after year, or save and sow if you are on a heavy clay. The light quality now in the morning and evening sunshine gives some lovely effects of backlit foliage. Shrubs such as Cotinus cogygria ‘Royal Purple’ when viewed with the sun behind are spectacular. In the vegetable garden, beans are cropping well, especially dwarf french beans.

At Stillingfleet Lodge http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk  I love the bold hot splashes of colours in the long borders just now and flowering shrubs such as a Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ which spends much of the year nestling discreetly against the house, now boasts big showy waxy white blooms. In the meadow, the species roses are producing the most wonderful array of hips.

In Yvonne’ cut flower garden, the sweet peas are now being picked by the armful and the dahlias are at their peak. At Christine’s, I think the balance of textures and colours in the bed of Crocosmias, Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’, Echinacea  and Hemerocallis      is just about right this year! We have pinched out the growing tips of the Lysimachia and pulled out quite a lot to give a delicate chocolatey backdrop for the reds, oranges and yellows of the flowers.

I could go on…so there are many enjoyable features in the August garden.

The Rural Gardener - Always room for just one more!

My youngest daughter has recently returned home after six months travelling with two close friends. They have had the most wonderful adventure which has taken them from Thailand through Malaysia, Australia  and New Zealand and then Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru.

It is so good to have her safely home, that as far as I am concerned, just now, she is the best thing ever to come out of South America!

However, she does have tough competition in the form of Verbena bonariensis!!http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener

This hardy perennial has rather sparse, stiff and upright green stems which branch and look very elegant, because the rather narrow green leaves do not hide this ‘airy’ structure. These stems carry lilac purple flowers which start in mid summer and continue right through to early winter. Verbena bonariensis is one of those plants that you can usually squeeze in to a garden that is already full. It looks great when it is planted in a drift through a border amongst other perennials and shrubs. Although it can grow to five or six feet, it is so slender and ’see through’ that it will not dominate and can actually be used very effectively even at the front of a border. By August, when some perennials are looking a bit tired and past their best, V. bonariensis is at the peak of performance.

The flowers are lovely with silver foliage and also look good against green. When it comes to other flowers, they look pretty amongst pink, blue and purple and striking against hot orange, yellow and red! As Autumn arrives, I love the effect of looking through V. bonariensis planted where orange Pyracantha berries such as P. ‘Golden Charmer’ can be seen beyond. 

Verbena bonariensis self seeds readily in most soils, although not on heavy clay. Although a hardy perennial, it sometimes succumbs to a severe winter, although many of the ones I thought had died last winter did shoot up from ground level again after being cut back hard in mid Spring. Some plants will actually seed themselves to death if allowed to do so. A position in full sun and reasonably moist fertile soil is preferred, but if you plant young plants between other shrubs or perennials, they will find their way up to the sun where possible.

If you think your garden is full, but you don’t have any of these lovely plants, how about speaking nicely to a friend or neighbour who has a few spare seedlings? Gardens, in my experience, are never quite full.