My Little Garden 1st August 2020
Well, goodbye July and hello August. Although we still have plenty of summer left it always feels to me that we’ve turned a corner in the seasons and I start to think about the late summer flowers and what bulbs I need to plant in autumn…. Or that’s what I would be thinking about if the Greater Manchester lockdown hadn’t been announced on Thursday night and we are once again banned from seeing friends and family in our homes and gardens.
I’ve probably said something similar before, but I have no desire to go to the pub or browse around shops in a mask. The supermarket experience was bad enough this week, with no restriction on numbers of shoppers and no social distancing (presumably justified by the fact that masks are compulsory even if people don’t wear them correctly!) What I do want to do, as a fit healthy and young(ish)granny, is to continue to see my family and provide childcare a couple of times a week so that the parents can work. Oh, and it would be quite helpful for my job as well which involves meeting people in their gardens!
I could carry on ranting, but you’re probably getting bored already, so lets get back to the garden and what’s been happening in the last week of July. These are my Six on Saturday for the 1st of August.
1.These daisies have taken a battering in all the wind and rain this week. They also have some strange bendy stems which is nothing to do with the weather. They are in a pot which is moved around to fill gaps as and when required and I love their shaggy appearance.
2. This is an interesting little foliage plant that I bought a few weeks ago. I thought it would work well in a border with the dark foliage of Physocarpus ‘Lady in Red’ in the background. I’ve always liked persicaria since I spotted some P. virginiana ‘Painter’s Palette’ in a local NGS garden, and I thought I’d give this variety a try. After two months I’m slightly worried about how thuggish it might be as it seems to be happily making baby plants all by itself. Eek!
3. Moving swiftly on, I know this next photo doesn’t seem very interesting but the plant will look lovely in the next couple of days when the flowers open properly. It’s the second thalictrum to flower in the garden and it’s about 7 foot high which is much taller than I expected. I bought it at the Arley Flower show last year and have lost the label but it’s either ‘Splendide’ or ‘Hewitt’s Double’. To be confirmed!
4. The first of the mid to late summer anemones has also opened. I need to get rid of lots of these in autumn and I’ll probably start with this one which I don’t like very much.
5. The agapanthus are still looking good but there’s no sign of a flower on the blue and white one called Twister. I remember that this was very late to flower last year so I haven’t given up, but I’d be very tempted to get another if I spot one on my travels.
6. And I’ll finish with a view of my rusty poppy seedheads. Accompanying them are a mix of verbena (‘bonariensis’ and officinalis ‘Bampton’), salvia, achillea, anemones of the swan variety and Geranium ‘Ann Folkhard’. There’s also a couple of different varieties of aster waiting in the wings to take the border into autumn.
And that’s my Six on Saturday for this week. Links to lots more ‘sixes’ can be found on the blog of The Propagator who is the creator of this weekly collection, and there are many more excellent photos and blogs on twitter under the hashtag #SixonSaturday
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
Have a great weekend (unless you live in Leicester or Greater Manchester, in which case just make the best of it)!
