In a Vase on Monday - Indian Summer?

 I do like the vagaries of  English Weather, how seasons are never the same, how us gardeners need to plan for almost every eventuality, how one year can be different from another in how plants grow and thrive or not.  

Yes I understand that others may like predictability, and that a long spell of warm possibly hot sunny weather is welcomed by holiday markers and non gardeners. I prefer cooler temperatures.  The question on my mind is are we going to get an Indian Summer.  There is still time...in the meantime, it is time that Alstromeria Indian Summer takes its turn In a Vase on Monday.

Joining the lily like blooms in the vase are Alchemilla mollis leaves and sprigs of Lonicera Nitida Baggesens Gold. As usual I will be joining in Cathy's weekly get together, now she has uploaded this week's post,  showing flowers from our garden. 

Six on Saturday - In the garden at the end of August

 It has been mainly cool for August with a little rain, and this week  we have sunny days and some quite warm weather and more rain too.  The birds have only just returned to the garden, with the usual crowd queuing up to have a bath with different tits, robins, blackbirds, and gold crests most common.  They seem to land in the Mirabelle tree and queue there. It was due for cutting back and being removed in the next few days, yesterday I  pruned it and it will remain just as a bird landing tree.  It has had so many blackfly and with the squirrel eating most of the fruit before they were ready, I was really despairing, but seeing the birds love it, it is staying for now.

That was the bonus bit, and I am hoping that Jim who leads this weekly get together will overlook this.  He is a kind and helpful chap with loads of gardening and horticultural experience.  Many similar people join in each week, and nuggets of tips, information or must have plants are shared over on his post.

My Six this week: 

1. We have finally had the arboriculturists deal with the overhanging branches of the Holm Oak and I have been busy tidying up and planning a few changes.

I carefully overturned all the empty boxes and recycling bins over some of the shrubs, and was surprised how large some of the branches were when they were down on the ground.

Some of the larger branches were just too large to be shredded, but from the smaller ones I had a useful amount of chippings to top up the paths, though I had to lift the stepping stones, then place them back. I kept a few short lengths about as thick as my forearm as I like to have a few lying around to rot down and provide some shelter for different wildlife that live in the garden.

2.  I love patterns  and form and how lovely are these leaves as they emerge from an underground tuber after many months dormant beneath the gravel

Cyclamen graecum subsp. candicum

I've just placed my order with the Cyclamen Society for seed, which won't arrive till around the end of the year. As one has until the end of August to place the orders, and if you are keen on growing different cyclamen, then may I recommend it with annual membership of £10, and a small admin fee for the 10 packets of seeds, amounting to 50p per packet.  There are some wonderful varieties and loads of information about growing cyclamen.  I only grow the hardy ones in a very amateurish way. 

3. Earlier in the year we could pick up a plug plant to grow on at the gardening club, and this Fuchsia won a 'prize' at the summer party, when we were take back the grown plant to show. This is how it looks this week, not bad fa few months growth.

Fuchsia Coralle

4. In the gravel garden there was a battle between two plants.  It was completely my fault, I had sown some seeds a few years back of an Eryngium which I had received from the HPS but they failed to germinate and only germinated this year. Because I had given up on their emerging, in that t area I planted a lovely little pot of one of those plants that just caught my eye during our visit to Beth Chatto's garden.  You can guess it: the Eryngium was far too close to the Limonium. I dug up the Limonium bellidifolium removed the blooms and divided it up and replanted all the bits in one pot.  Whether the plant will survive or not only the spirit of the garden can tell at the moment. since advice read after I carried out the work says it is difficult and should be done in the spring. As it is in a pot, I can move it into the shed for the winter or even a 'luxury convalescent conservatory' situation' where it will be protected from excess rain. I shan't tell it that it has undergone precarious surgery, and maybe in the spring I shall have several good strong plants.

Limonium bellidifolium divided and now potted up

5. It is the sharp shoulders that helped me identify this shield bug seen during the week.  It is quite distinct from some of the others in the garden, and this is the first time I have seen it.  Pentatoma rufipes or Forest Shield Bug also has other characteristics that help to identity it. We do have oak trees close by.

6. Eryngium 'Silver Ghost' has been feeding so many flying insects, it is a biannual and here there are six or seven plants.

I just wonder if fewer will visit now the neighbour had a large wasps nest 'dealt with'.

It had been chucked over the wall into the cemetery, and I wanted to see  inside.   The various sections were so interesting with the cells arranged in combs and the combs linked in the middle by a stalk.  I've spent a few minutes looking up details about the nest and the wasps that built it.  From the description and the position of the nest I would say they were Median Wasps.

There will be plenty of seeds of this Eryngium shortly, so if anyone would like seed let me know. They are best scattered where you want the plants to grow rather than transplanting them, but Jim says that he sowed some seeds of another Eryngium I sent him and transplanted them successfully from pots. 

In a Vase on Monday - Too busy

Not really too busy, but busy doing other things such as hosting my lovely sister and partner.  Suffice it to say I am posting and using flowers photographed from over a week ago.  I really wanted to show them as they are a combination of flowers from the garden and those that Alison brought over.  I had invited Alison to come along for the flower festival at the Bishop's Palace in Wells.  On my return I combined the flowers.  

It has been some time since Alison has posted on our In a Vase on Monday but just thought you would like to know that  she is well, and her business and growing of  flowers are thriving. 

 It was the 70th Anniversary of the Wells Floral Art Club.  There were sections for the different decades, and together we went round assessing and discussing, admiring, and most of all realising that sadly some of the arrangements were still using oasis, and many of the flowers even though could be grown in the UK obviously came from abroad through the Continental Flower markets.  Having been round the whole show, both our top awards went to the arrangements made by Teresa from the plants grown in the Palace Gardens.

These are just a few of the fine arrangements.

Hopefully normal postings will start again next week. In the meantime the doyenne of In a Vase on Monday Cathy will be posting as well as many of the regulars, if you want more of wonderful flowers grown in our own gardens. 

In a Vase on Monday

 I couldn't get back to sleep after waking at 4 a.m. this morning, and got up very early this morning.  As the sun came up we had light mist, and the garden was really quite beautiful, with spiders webs laced with diamonds of moisture.  The flowers were cut very early, and I had to wait for better light to take a picture, for the one taken in the kitchen with some of the wild damsons was not as bright as I would like it to be.

There is far more light in the conservatory, and here a couple of hours later is the little arrangement along with some of the small terracotta soldiers and horse which we bought yonks ago when we visited the buried terracotta army in China. 

I wanted to show the new Chrysanthemum, bought earlier this year, which is growing in a large glazed pot.  It is most probably Chrysanthemum Chatsworth.  The probably came about because I mixed up the labels when it came to potting up the rooted cuttings when they first arrived in April.  I only realised this when I checked the name on the lovely white Chrysanthemum which is also in flower, and knew that one should be White Gem, but that was not the name on the label, and the White Gem label was with another plant.  It is a fabulous plant and has been in flower for over two weeks, it could be this early due to it being a young plant.  Since it is hardy, I hope it will go through the winter.  I did loose my very favourite from last year, so will give it some protection just in case.

The darker foliage is Pittosporum Tom Thumb, the golden is from  Lonicera nitida 'Baggesen's Gold', and the purple are shortened stems so much loved by bees and hoverflies, of  Origanum laevigatum Herrenhausen. 

This post will be linked as usual on Cathy's post today. 

Wild Damsons

 Out for a walk this morning along the lanes, and prepared with boxes and carrier bag we came back with very nearly two kilos of wild damsons.

I noticed that the elderberries were starting to ripen, and again this year I shall be making elderberry syrup or cordial. 

Six on Saturday - 5th August 2023

It is another soggy Saturday here, but luckily the pictures were in the can from one of the drier interludes this week. I even woke up very very early as I heard a few drops of rain hit the window and remembered that I had left some little seedlings outside with a non draining holder, so like all 'parents' of babies I was up to attend to them and bring them into the conservatory, waterproof over night wear and garden shoes, slipping back into bed for a couple more hours horizontal tossing. I wonder what other gardeners will write about, to find out go over to Jim's anchoring post, and catch up at your leisure. 

1. It is four years since Agapanthus 'Charlotte' was planted in the front garden.  All the plants are doing very well, and being small and upright just right for me.  The pale blue petals are quite striking with their darker mauve centre line.  They have been flowering nicely for at least a fortnight.

2. Last year I grew a couple of lovely Chrysanthemums and this year ordered a few more to try.  When it came to potting them up, I must have mixed up the labels, and it is only as they are coming into bloom and by looking back at the names on my order form and the pictures on Halls of Heddon website, can I work out which plant I planted where.  The spoon petaled Chrysanthemum 'White Gem 21f' has been in flower for at  least two weeks, and is bearing up with the heavy rain. It also holds its blooms nicely above the foliage.

Chrysanthemum White Gem 21f

3. In the gravel garden this small yellow Allium flavum is the current star. It stands out nicely against the gravel and particularly during the grey days we have been having.

4. In June I picked up a small Fuchsia 'La Campanella' from Morrisons, and just look at it how in the mixed pot, just two months later my £1.30 spend is certainly working beautifully.

Fuchsia 'La Campanella' 

5. To emulate a pairing in my previous garden which was quite stunning, after four years growing through the bay tree Clematis 'Purpurea Plena Elegans' is starting to be strong enough to make a lovely show.

Clematis 'Purpurea Plena Elegans'

Close up the blooms are equally beautiful.

As well as butterflies, and dragon flies, when the rain has stopped and I am out there looking around the garden, I have been surprised to find some moths that I had not seen before.  I posted pictures of two of them earlier in the week.  Just a the White plume moth was small and delicate, the Oak eggar moth was bold and brash'.

6. Lasiocampa quercus, female Oak eggar, seen basking in the sun in the open, was conspicuous with its tawny furry wings and small white eye circled with in dark on the wings. It was resting on a Phlomis russeliana leaf, in the front, close to a street light.  A member of the Somerset Moth Group confirmed its identity of Oak eggar, female.

Insects are having the time of their life, and slugs and snails are escaping my searches as each morning I view my seedlings in the veggie area disappearing.  Even the roses are being targeted, at first I thought they were cute but I shall be moving the crickets to a better place for the roses, if I can catch them.

P.S. I have Cyclamen hederifolium seeds available.  For UK only, if you would like some, add a comment which will not be published, with your name and address and I shall post them to you.