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While on early shots of the garden, I thought this may interest a few of you with new gardens, we all have to start somewhere, notice the well worn spade, it was about 40 years old in this shot and served me for about another ten years. Most of the wear to the blade was caused by digging out the holes for the fence posts, the soil (if you can call it that) was only about 6 inches (15cm) deep in places with solid sandstone below. The bucket was there for collecting stones, I am still collecting them now 20 years later. |
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This is a photograph I didn't think I would ever get, my Rheum Palmatum relatively undamaged by slugs. This late in the year there is a lot of decaying matter to tempt them away from the succulent greenery, and with exceptional amounts of rain the Rheum is in it's element. The leaves in the photo are about 2 feet (60cm) across and dwarf the geranium below. |
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I know that I've covered Lonicera before, but wanted to include this to show what a long flowering season you get with ample rain. These flowers are just opening and the berries you can see are from blossom in early June. I can't remember whether this was a bought one or a gift from the birds, but whichever it is very welcome at this time of year when not too much is in flower. |
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Another couple of clematis this month, the first one, to the left, is more of a scrambler than a climber and has quite coarse foliage, but it suits my semi- wild to totally wild form of gardening. As you can see the flowers are tiny, but lots are produced over quite a long period and they are the softest shade of mauve and look good even in bud. "He doesn't know what it's called" was the cry, and you could be right, but I have one in my book that looks just like it, called Clematis x jouiniana Praecox. |
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This one, Clematis Huldine, I only got to see because I cut back hard my Autumn Cherry, otherwise the flower would have been fifteen feet (4.6m) off the ground. It is a strong grower and tends to go straight up if it gets the chance, with all the buds forming on the last third of the new growth. This is the first year that it has flowered well for me, again probably due to the exceptional amount of rain, normally it is in a very dry spot with the cherry taking all the moisture out of the ground. |
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Just to show how things can grow, same conifer in
both shots, the photograph above was taken about 20 years ago in my then
fairly new garden, as you can see the lawn is just emerging from
seed sown a few weeks earlier. The shot on the right shows the conifer
as it is now, standing about 20 feet (6m) high.
