The plant that has really stolen my heart at the moment in the garden is the Kirengeshoma palmata. I only acquired this plant a year ago from Crug Farm and had no idea what I was buying but I found it attractive.
The plant overwintered in its pot in the cold frame while I found time to research it and work out where it should go in the garden – always a problem when you impulse buy! My research told me that the plant was hardy (fantastic), originated from Japan and Korea woodlands. They like moist soil which is enriched with leaf mould, in partial shade out of the wind. Luckily I have the ideal location, not something that happens very often, the border which runs along the edge of my patio is very shady and the soil is very moisture retentive and rich due to all the compost I throw on it when I empty seed trays from the nearby greenhouse. The plant was placed in this border adjacent to a Actaea racemosa.
The plant has thrived and put on lots of growth just since the Spring. I am particularly pleased with the way the leaves, described in the RHS A-Z as “ovate, palmately lobed, slightly hairy, pale green leaves” contrast with the Actaea leaves not just in colour but also in shape. Maybe once I have started on my RHS course I will be able to come up with such wonderful descriptions for myself!. The stems of the Kirengeshoma are a similar colour to the Actaea plant and this helps to bring the planting together – well I think so!
Now though is when the plant comes into its own – it has started to flower. The A-Z describes the flowers as “broadly tubular pale yellow flowers”, a description which is precise but does not really, to my mind, do the flowers justice. The open flower reminds me of old fashioned butter curls that you used to get nestling on a small dish of ice. I know the shape isn’t quite right but its the colour and the way the petals look soft and creased. The buds are also very attractive in their own right.
This is a wonderful plant as it brings flowers to the shady woodland border where there aren’t that many plants that flower at this time of year. The Kirengeshoma positively lifts the border at the moment with the tight yellow buds reminding me of small yellow beads twinkling as the light fades.
I thought I would show you the charming flowers of Echium vulgare ‘Dwarf Hybrids’. I mistakenly bought the seeds thinking I was really buying a dwarf version of the Echium candicans – I had seen these at Chelsea and was completely enraptured. I think the tall Echium candicans would look out of place in my garden but could easily see a smaller version in my front garden. So I merrily sowed the seed in the greenhouse and up it popped, pricked it out and it continued to grow. It wasn’t until I came back from a week away at the end of July that I discovered I had got completely the wrong plant. There were gorgeous little blue flowers appearing but not in a spike as per the Echium candicans!! So I did what I should have done before I bought the seeds and looked the plant up in the book sure enough what I had bought was Vipers bugloss, a native biennial!!
Oh well, I had read that Vipers Bugloss was an excellent bee plant so I have planted these small (12-15in tall) plants in the front garden where they will get full sun. They have been flowering profusely for the last month although I am now perplexed as my research shows that these plants are biennials but I only sowed the seeds back April/May this year. It will be interesting to see if they continue growing and flower again next year. The other interesting thing is that all the descriptions are of spikes or cymes up to 12in long of flowers but it is clear from the photo above that this is not the case with my plants.
I particularly like the intensity of the blue flowers which really sparkles especially when it is covered in rain drops as it is today. I have noticed that as the flowers fade they seem to fade to a pinky huge which gives an interesting effect when planted en mass.
My only real disappointment with them is that they don’t seem to attract the insects as much as I thought they would. Other plants in the garden are positively alive with insects feeding on the nectar but this group of plants only seems to attract the odd insect. I wonder if it’s because the flowers aren’t developed properly.
Well time will tell and I shall wait to see if they reappear next year. In the meantime I shall see if I can find the name of the dwarf Echium candicans that I saw at Chelsea Flower Show.
I did a post a couple of posts back about my dilemmas in the garden. I realised after I had published the post that it was only a few days until the end of the month and I would be posting the same pics. However, this has turned out not to be the case due to inspiration and hard work over the last couple of days. My main problem for the last couple of years has been the bank. I had recently thought seriously about having a wild flower meadow but then after the excitement subsided I started to realise that it wouldn’t be as easy as I thought and probably wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the garden. Back to the drawing board and my original plan to plant it with grasses and ‘new perennials’ in a prairie style. This would also help with the wind that crosses the garden as the plants would hopefully be ones that could stand up to it. I had started this plan a while ago but it wasn’t working. Now I realise it was because of two very large shrubs which were already on the bank (a Cornus and a Broom) which I hadn’t thought of moving until I was considering a wild flower meadow. Having moved them the bank is now more open and the light coming down the garden has improved. I have been busy the last two days planting out a row of Calamogrostis Overdam along the top of the bank, this is interspersed with Verbena bonariensis and hopefully will provide a short screen which you can look through from the top of the garden. I have also included another Eupatorium, some short Guaras, a Leucanthemum and an Echinacea. I am hoping to get some Asters to include tomorrow when I visit the national collection. There were already some Miscanthus and another Calamogrostis on the bank so hopefully it will start to fill out soon. I am thinking about including some bulbs for spring interest but haven’t quite decided what yet – maybe some Alliums or Camassias.
The Cornus from the bank was only moved a short distance to the bank of the corner border. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before as it really lifts the corner and works well with the Phormium. You don’t get the full effect in this photo as I was struggling against the setting sun. I have also moved a Kniphofia to by the Phormium and it picks up the colours wonderfully.
The pond border is looking quite good at the moment with the brighter warm colours still going strong. The Ligularia is such a fantastic plant even if it isn’t as tall as in previous years. I am quite happy with this border – well this year! But my real bug bear is the wall border. I haven’t really engaged with it and I know it needs work. I can see it from my living room and I have got to the stage where I just look through it now. I hope that sooner or later inspiration will hit which is what happened with some other bits of the garden.
Feel free to join in on the End of Month meme. Just do a post on the last day of the month and leave a link to it in the my comments box. It can be of anything in the garden but I have found it interesting to show the same area from one month to another – it has helped with planning what needs to be done.
I know the quality of this photo is a bit grainy but I was completely captivated by the weird seed heads on this plant and only had one shoot as the battery was about to give up. At first I thought it was some horrid bug infeststion, along the lines of the lily bettle. But now, after plucking up courage to look more closely I have realised that these are indeed the seed heads of Cautleya spicata ‘Arun Flame’.
I bought the plant from Crug Farm last September and it was beginning to go over then so I didn’t notice the seedheads. I kept the plant in the greenhouse over the winter as it looks so tropical. Looking at Crug Farm’s website I see that the plant was collected from Eastern Nepal in 2002 by Bleddyn and Sue Wyn-Jones, Dan Hinckley and Jamaica Kincaid. Oh how I would love to go on a trip like that! The fact that is hails from Nepal makes me think that it is hardier than I originally gave it credit for. The RHS Enclyopedia lists it as borderline hardy so I’m not convinced it would have survived the prolonged snow we have this winter.
Anyway, I think I will be collecting these seeds and having a go at sowing them in the Spring. The only thing is that as they are so bizarrely white and unlike any other seedheads I have seen I don’t know whether I should be waiting longer or collecting them now?
Rudbeckia - my Brother-in-Law's favourite flower
Today I am feeling weary and have a sore back but this is good as it is the result of spending yesterday helping my brother-in-law start to sort out his garden. As some of you may know my sister died suddenly of meningitis last October at the age of 37 leaving behind her husband (who we shall call BIL for ease) and my 5 year old niece. As you can imagine we have all been struggling this last year in different ways and it hasn’t been easy for any of us. My parents have been a tower of strength to my BIL, helping him install the new kitchen (it was delivered the day my sister was admitted to hospital) which none of them really wanted to do and helping him finish other work she had started. I know that this has helped them to feel close to her but I have shied away. I have seen my BIL and niece lots of time in the last year but it has always been when they were visiting here (we live about an hour apart). I knew that I had allowed going to the house and her grave to become a stumbling block for me that I would have to address at some point if I was to move forward at all.
Yesterday was the first step, my parents had planned to go and visit to help my BIL with the garden and used this as an excuse to persuade me to go. They needed my advice – or so they said! I needn’t have worried, despite a sleepless night, arriving at the house wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated and immediately my charming niece had me playing a board game with her. Interestingly whenever I have seen her here she hasn’t mentioned her mother but yesterday she told me in her own way about the nightmares she has and how she missing my sister – maybe me being at her home made her feel safer to talk about it.
Anyway, on to the main agenda of the day – the garden. My sister was a novice gardener but she loved her garden. They had bought the house 4 years ago in anticipation of my BIL coming out of the RAF, which he had done two months before she died. She had set down roots both figuratively and literally. Slowly but surely a garden was appearing. My BIL has had to learn a lot of new skills in the last year particularly in terms of childcare but also in terms of gardening. I dont think I have ever met anyone who knows so little about horticulture! However, I have to say that I have never seen such a wonderful lawn as his – it is the lushest, greenest lawn for miles. As he ruefully says it is lucky they aren’t on a water meter! My sis loved her garden and so he wants it to be nice for her but it is definitely not a case of keeping it just as she had it, far from it. He has very definite ideas about what he likes and what he doesn’t. I was in tears of laughter at some points – all plants are to be kept separate from each others, he doesn’t like it when they swamp each other, ideally they should have a ring of earth around them and stand up straight. I did speculate whether his years in the RAF had some input into this! He expects each plant to do something “What does this do?”, “Can’t see the point of this” were repeated phrases yesterday.
My Mum, BIL and I (Dad was fixing a lock somewhere) worked hard all day, there was extensive pruning, the relocation of an Acer (which admittedly was not thriving), planting of a Bamboo. I felt like a walking gardening encyclopedia: explaining when and how he could cut back the Lavender, what conditions the Broom needed (not deep shade as it was currently tolerating), when to divide the Rudbeckias which he loves etc. There is still lots to do to achieve what he wants – though to be honest I think it is more an organic plan as each plant is assessed and is future decreed but most importantly it brought us together and provided an environment where we could talk about my sis comfortably and laugh about things that had happened in the past. The garden was helping to heal us, maybe only a little bit, but it all helps.
Sometimes in life we avoid the things that, without us realising it, are really what we need. I am glad I spent yesterday digging up heaps of Crocosmia instead of finding reasons why I didn’t have time to go. I can go back now without a sense of dread and maybe next time I will find the courage to go to visit my sis’s grave.
Anyone who reads this blog regularly, and thank you if you do, will have noticed that I am having a bit of a dilema about the direction my garden and my gardening is to go in over the next year. I made a sweeping statement here which included that I was going to replant the slope with a wildflower meadow. I love the idea of a wildflower meadow but the more I think about it the more I am beginning to think that it just won’t work in my garden in this context. It will jarr against the planting around it. I wanted to attract lots of insects into the garden but I have noticed when I have been in the garden recently that there are masses of buzzy things already.
I have been looking at my garden with a critical eye and thinking about what I like and what I don’t. It is no secret that I don’t like how the bank is at present and there is another area along the top of the wall that isn’t coming together and lacks an identity. But on the other hand and to be positive I do like the grouping in the top picture. I like the combination of leaf shapes, size and colour. There are flowers from time to time but they really enhance it rather than being the purpose for the combination. I like the planting above, well sort of, still needs something to lift it just behind the prostrate Rosemary. I’m thinking another tall grass though I have toyed with a smallish fruit tree but I don’t think that will work and I would be better moving towards a prairies style.
This is the other side of the border and as you can see it narrows as it goes round and I think this is restricting my planting. The narrow bit is the area that doesn’t work, so I am wondering about making the border deeper after all the books always say that you should be generous with your borders. Will need to work out how to shape the ‘lawn’ so it doesn’t look wrong but widening the border would also help with the slope which is quite steep up from the border.
This is the border which sort of runs parallel with the border that I may widen. It is at the top of the ‘lawn’ and is quite deep; it hides the wildlife pond which lurks behind and is accessed from the two ends. I am getting happier and happier with this border. I tend to put the late summer hot colours in here and at the other end there is Dahlia Chat Noir, Lobelia Cardinalis, Ligularia Desdemona. I need to lift the planting at the end nearest the camera. I’m thinking that something like the Lobelia Tupa planted in front of the Rodgersia would pick up on the redness of the leaves. This is the sort of planting I am liking more and more and I can feel this is the way the garden is going so you can see that wildflower meadow really wouldn’t sit well in this context despite how much I would like one. 
I had planned to plant the wild flower meadow on the slope at the back of this picture. I am struggling with the slope; it only really appeared about 2 years ago when we removed a ridiculously huge laurel. The biggest problem is that there is a wind which blows through my garden despite the trees and so anything tall needs to be robust or bendable. I thought that a wild flower meadow here would solve the problem as the plants wouldn’t mind the wind but I think it will just look wrong. I would like to put some exotic big leaved plants on the slope to create a big of depth and mystery; the path that runs along the top would then be secret; but I am worried that big leaved stuff might not cope with the wind and being a slope it drains well and so far most exotic looking stuff needs a bit of moisture so I will think about it a bit more.
So I think I have talked myself out of the wild flower meadow and I think I will think about widening the bottom border and continue collecting the plants I love though I will try to think about where the plant will go before I buy it !!
PS Sorry about the darkness of the photos, it has been raining all day and I wanted to take some pictures to help me process my ideas
