Wordless Wednesday- Too Early For Fireworks?

What a Perfumed Paradise !

Yes

It’s been a while since I blogged, and it’s well overdue for a catch up.

No major changes have happened recently in the garden. It’s now becoming well established, with maintenance and tweaking the order of the day. Humdrum stuff really!

But at the height of summer, with everything blooming and smelling divine, I just had to share!

I love hydrangea “Annabelle ” at this time of year, just as the flower heads change from lime green to pure white.

And, as always, when June moves into July, we have the battle for perfume champion.

It’s always the roses…

…. versus the philadelphus.

Mind you, there are other contenders, too.

Jasmine….

….and our “borrowed” honeysuckle!

I’m afraid the jury’s still out!

Chloris http://thebloominggarden.wordpress.com/ has been asking which new scented plants, I’ve purchased in the meantime. Not so many, I’m afraid! I’m having to be more disciplined as space is becoming limited. I’ve bought Cistus purpurea to add to the Cottage border, to replace a failing rose, (which has now sprung back into life in a pot – typical!) and a Calycanthus “Venus” for the same reason! (But that’s for another time!)

Of course, there’s also the impulse buy from Malvern show, Rhaphiolepsis umbellata, which is still languishing in its pot, while I ponder where to put it. Must get this one right first time – it won’t tolerate being moved.

And my most recent purchase is – surprise, surprise – not scented! It was bought at the local carnival this weekend and was not an impulse buy. It was one that was premeditated for adding to my collection of blue glazed foliage pots, a dark leaved Phormium, to set off the other surrounding dark planting. (Sadly, with no label!)

I’ve also experimented with seasonal pots, using night scented phlox (easier than Zaluzianskya ovata!) as the main ingredient, which I’ve grown from seed. This is the first time in many years I’ve dabbled in this aspect of the garden. I’ve planted up two large pots and used them alongside complementary summer bedding.

The first is a large, metallic planter where I’ve picked up on the white flowers of the phlox backed with purple, and paired it with a scented Petunia (of course!), one whose perfume takes me back to summer holidays.

The other is in a brown and white glazed pot, where I chose a white begonia with the darkest, chocolate brown leaves I could find, to plant with the phlox, to match the planter.

The rest of the phlox plants I grew have been planted in a couple of containers on their own. As yet, the phlox is yet to flower, though it’s not far off. You can just see them starting to open in the brown pot.

Elsewhere in the garden, the Grass garden was really in need of an overhaul, due to some plants, including, I’m afraid to say, weeds, taking over. It’s now settling in and performing well.

So that’s a round up of our main developments!

And it’s good to be getting back into the swing again! So will see you again soon!

The Summer Garden’s Second Phase

The Cottage border has now done its thing, and is looking a bit flat and tired out. Even the brave attempts by the Leucanthemum daisies, are now looking a bit half hearted. But all is not over yet.

Travel through the archway, and you’ll find our Grass garden, a border of grasses and hot coloured prairie style planting, that happens to flower later in the summer, providing a well received injection of colour. You’ve had glimpses of it in the past, but now is the time to show you in detail.

Hot Grass border

This was the border, as we saw it from the archway, way back in June, when it was just filling out. It’s looking nice and “tidy” (a word I hate when applied to the garden!) at this time, and you can make out the basic layout.

It’s a border about 30ft long by 6ft wide, bounded by two paths – the long central grass path, and a concrete/slab path, that originally ran the length of the garden by the garden wall. The slabs had been removed from the top half of the garden, right at the start, to create our cottage border, but the solid concrete path remained, and has now been incorporated into the gardens designs, as an alternative route round the garden. A gravel path links the concrete path to the Cottage Garden beyond the trellis fence, and has been continued to cut through the Grass border. As the border is so long, with paths either side, I thought it would be nice to link the two paths, creating a path through the planting, to “get up close and personal” with the plants, in particular the oh so tactile grasses. In actual fact, at this time of the summer, it is probably a bit too “close and personal”! More like cutting through the undergrowth – not an easy route!

You can also make out our homemade bench. Two metal gabions, filled with empty wine bottles, and a scaffolding plank across the top. We had fun making that! It’s a lovely, hot sunny spot to sit in, in good weather (with a glass of wine, of course!) Several rusty artefacts have also found their way there, their colouring blending in well with the colour scheme here.

The border is, in actual fact, a combination of three colour-themed borders, merged together.

Firstly, the Chocolate-orange border is the one furthest away in the photo.

Chocolate-orange Border

The border is backed by the shrub, Cotinus “Grace”, with its gorgeous, chocolatey leaves. It needs to be hard pruned every spring to maintain its size, as it can grow quite large, but this way it produces improved leaves. Akebia quinata, the chocolate vine, clambers over the archway. The orange flowers here are Helenium “Moorheim Beauty”, and the remnants of flowers and seed heads of Crocosmia “Lucifer”. The spires you see, are the dead flower spikes of Digitalis parvifola. Geums and Kniphofia continue providing more orange elements. The grasses here are Stipa gigantea, the bronze Carex buchananii and Miscanthus “Ferner Osten”, with its wonderful chocolate/wine plumes.

Miscanthus “Ferner Osten” with Cotinus “Grace”

The central section is the Wine border.

Wine Border

Here, the colour scheme is of deep winey reds, with Persicaria amplexicaulis “Firetail”, Sedum, Knautia macedonia, Sanguisorba menziesii and the annual self-seeder, Atriplex hortensis rubra all set off with the silver Artemisia ludoviciana, and pink Echinacea purpurea. The grasses here are the upright Calamagrostis “Overdam”, the ethereal Molinia “Transparent” and the silvery fountain that is Miscanthus “Morning Light”.

The Grass Border finishes (or starts, depending on how you look at it!) with the Gold border, in shades of golden yellow contrasting with blues and purples.

Gold Border

The gold is provided mainly by the flowers of Fennel and of an unknown perennial Helianthus. At the back of the border, the steely blue orbs of globe thistle, Echinops ritro, tower over 6 ft tall. Thalictrum delavayi, with its lilac froth of flowers blends well with the fennel, creating a very hazy scene, punctuated by spots of purple provided by Phlox “Nicky”. Aster x frikartii “Monch”, is yet to add its lilac flowers to the froth. Elsewhere, there are the blue spires of Perovskia, Veronica, and, earlier, Salvia, with added gold shades from an orange Hemerocallis. Another Calamagrostis, the green “Karl Foerster”, repeats the punctuation provided by the previous silver edged “Overdam” and, sadly, a Melica Atropurpurea, with its beautiful purple plumes, struggles to break through.

You may also have noticed popping up, the purple flower heads of Verbena bonariensis, allowed to self seed throughout the whole border, its repetition linking the three borders together.

And when this border has finished its flowering, it’s still not over. Flowers have been chosen, that have interesting seed heads and shapes, to remain with the dead grasses, giving texture and interest into autumn, and hopefully winter, when frost creates yet another beautiful picture.

There you have it! A riot of colour! Hope you like it!

My cunning plan – An apology!

It has just come to me, that I didn’t post the Picture Plant List that I created for the plan. (This was intended to give the Commitee some idea of the plants I was considering). After all, this is, most likely, the bit that interests us all. So I must put that right!

The suggested plants don’t all appear in the final plant list, partly due to availability, and partly, how the planting plan developed. Most notably, I couldn’t fit the Perovskia into the planting plan. And this is just a sample – a taster, if you like! Many more plants were added to the final list.

Hope you enjoy!

My cunning plan – The story so far!

Mood Board

I have been busy working on a voluntary project, to design a garden for a local Health Centre. From these “Before” pictures, you can see what I have had to contend with! “Tombstone City” is how the Chairman of the Patient Commitee introduced it!

If you read my first post on the project, you will know the ideas I was playing with – A “Healing Garden”, with medicinal herbs and plants, A “Memory Garden” with roses and plants donated in memory of loved ones, and a “Serene Garden”, designed as a calm, relaxing space. I opted for the latter.

As you can imagine, drawing up the initial base plan was somewhat on the tricky side – an intricate design to say the least! Lack of funds meant the layout had to stay. My brief was to design the planting for the area. Yes, you are right! Not only is it an uninspiring area of bark-covered membrane, it is also littered with dead tree stumps and drainage covers! I was worried I had volunteered too quickly! You can imagine my relief when I was told they were to employ a gardener to clear the area. As if the clean-up op wasn’t daunting enough, there is no direct outdoor access. It all would have to be removed through the building. (The garden is situated in an internal quadrangle.)

On to my task! I planned to solve the drain cover problem, by incorporating them into a path of stepping stones through Prairie-style planting, to disguise them to some extent. All the boulders would be recycled and employed in the new scheme.

I would use lots of grasses, for their calming movement and sound. Scent would also be an important feature. The colour scheme I chose was to be white, for its cool, calming effect, and yellow, as it is cheerful and uplifting. The second photo shows a perfect spot for a seating area – sheltered, backed by a brick wall, and in full sun. This would be the white, scented garden, with roses and lavender, backed by the beautiful, white climber Trachelospermum. Oh, and, of course, a bench! The main bed in first photo was to have the prairie planting of grasses and mainly yellow flowers, with hints of blue/purple for contrast and depth. The smaller beds would have mass planting of grasses. All chosen to grow easily, with the minimum of maintenance.

With my ideas formed, it was time to put pencil to paper.

First, was to create a Mood Board, to try to convey to the Commitee, the essence of the garden, which is what you see at the top of this post. I did with it a written outline of what I planned, along with a picture Plant List, to give some idea of the planting I was considering.

So then came the main Outline plan.

Once happy with that, I moved on to the Planting plan, complete with plant list, plant availability, costings, (which incidentally, was on target!) and, to round it off, a care plan. I added into this the possible next step, of adding bulbs to the scheme in autumn, suggesting that these could be donated by staff/ patients, with the aim of encouraging their participation in the garden.

This has all now been submitted. The next Commitee meeting is at the start of May, so now it’s the waiting game!