June

These are June Photographs

These are June Notes

Half way through the year people and I hope your gardens are everything you expected. 

Enkianthus campanulatus has been with me for eight years, it hardly ever puts on new growth, the flowers always abort in spring,  why do I bother with it? Then I go down the garden to where it hangs onto life and look at what's  waiting, a perfect set of flowers, sort of makes it all worthwhile. Then it's a rush for the camera to capture the event. At least next year if it fails again I can come here and see it in bloom. When it does grow well it makes a large shrub and prefers acid soil and a  semi shaded position.  My apologies to all you people with limy soil, you could try it in a large pot, or a raised lime free bed. 

Clematis are now in full swing, blooms appearing on most of them, even my Macropetala  is forming new buds for a second show, this it does every year as do most of the alpinas, never the amount they give in spring, but welcome all the same. The plant to the left, Clematis fargesioides Summer Snow is fast becoming a favourite, no not because it still has it's name tag although that does help, but because the flowers give such a cooling and fresh effect not found too often in the Summer, well named isn't it? The other big plus is the length of flowering season, from mid June to late September for me. Although only in my garden for three years it has made a good sized vigorous plant. It tends to prune itself in that it dies back to quite low down in Winter, this means fresh growth and flowers all the way up the plant. 

The same growth habit though not quite the same vigour is present in Clematis  viticella Venosa Violacea shown below right, in fact all the viticellas tend to sprout anew each Spring from fairly low down. You would no doubt be somewhat disappointed to see my garden in Winter, as I leave all the dead old growth on the Clematis to act as support to the new stems in Spring, well that's my excuse, but I told you right at the beginning that I am a lazy gardener.  

If I were to try and describe my style of gardening I suppose it would be "as nature intended". I love to see plants growing in the wild, no pattern, no rigidity and that is how I prefer to see them in the garden. Most of my shrubs act as support to some kind of climber giving the bonus of two seasons or more of flowers in the space of one plant. 

The other Clematis shown is I am sure familiar to most gardeners, it is of course Hagley Hybrid, and as I've stated previously one of the few large flowered types to survive in my acid soil. It does so well for me that I have two plants, one grows through a Rosa Canary Bird and the other shares the same wall space as my C. macropetala. The yellow rose has usually just finished flowering by the time the Clematis starts so no colour clash, and when the macropetala does it's second show the two flowers combine well.

See what I mean about as nature intended, yes this mix of plants is in my garden and yes some of the plants are self seeded wild flowers, but they look good to me. In there are Oxeye daisies Leucanthemum vulgare, Foxgloves Digitalis purpurea and Purple Toadflax Linaria purpurea, they are the weeds and they are joined  by Penstemons, Geums and Antirrhinums.  There are many others in the bed but not shown on the photograph, it is bee and butterfly paradise.

Whooo look a blue Hydrangea, well it was when I saw it in a neighbours garden, and coaxed from her a cutting, but in mine it is always sort of pinkish/purple. Shows how soil can differ in a distance of only a hundred feet (30m). I would love it to be blue but as my soil is already fairly acidic and I am anti-chemicals it stays the way it is. This is one of the few established plants in my garden that gets a drink in Summer. It grows under my Autumn Cherry for shade, but the cherry extracts every drop of moisture from the soil in our rare dry spells.

From a plant that I have to water to ensure survival to one that prefers it dry, no drought bothers this Senecio laxifolius. It grows under my Ponderosa Pine near my front boundary wall, there is no dryer spot in the garden  and it just grows and grows. I have to be fairly fierce with the pruning or it would take over the whole front garden. Most books seem to recommend flower removal as they spoil the neat mound of grey leaves, but I think they add a splash of colour, so I tend to cut it hard back just as they start to fade. This way it grows back and looks good all Winter.

I have run out of cats so here's a picture of my Guinea Pigs. Mom, Dad and three babies. The youngsters are about a week old in the photograph and enjoying their first day as little lawn mowers. 

These are June Photographs

These are June Notes