My Little Garden in Week 11 of Lockdown
This week it rained. Not inches of the stuff, but enough to wet the garden and give the water meter a rest from whizzing round like a demented hamster every evening. It’s also been a busy week…… the fact that my design work has had to feature large sheds and a jacuzzi isn’t ideal from my perspective, but I like a challenge. On the plus side, I was invited to see John Bent’s Weeping Ash Garden which is undergoing lots of exciting changes and I managed to squeeze in a visit to the newly reopened Arley Hall.
So what’s been happening in my own little garden this week. Here are my six on Saturday choices for the first week in June.
1.The first buds have just opened on this clematis and it is one of my favourite colours. It’s a very easy Pruning Group 3 variety so I can just cut back drastically each year and it regrows to an ideal height.
2. The lavender is coming along very nicely. Like so many plants at this time of the year, it’s worth a daily inspection to see the changes.
3. And this is Geranium ‘Red Admiral’ which isn’t red at all but a fabulous shade of magenta. It is a cross between Geranium Psilostemon, which has the same colour flowers but is considerably taller, and Geranium sylvaticum ‘Baker’s Pink’. I was introduced to it by Sue Beesley of Bluebell Cottage Gardens a few years back and it’s now a firm favourite. It didn’t get a mention on Carol Klein’s geranium feature on Gardener’s World last night but ‘Anne Thomson’ which is a similar colour did. What’s not to like about a geranium!
4. Gertrude is sporting a very impressive number of blooms at the moment. Here she is doing battle with Thalictrum ‘Elin’ which is currently heading skyward. I need to get the ladders out to take a shot of the flowers for next week.
5. I love this pretty little Erigeron which grows over an old tree stump in the sunny part of the garden. It’s a useful plant for all sorts of places and looks great as part of a container display.
6. And going back to the fact that this week has seen the first real rain of lockdown, what better for the last of my ‘six’ than Alchemilla mollis. It’s name comes from Arabic meaning ‘ little magical one’. Back in the middle ages it was thought that water collected from it’s leaves had healing properties. It certainly has magical powers in terms of seeding itself around with unmitigated enthusiasm, but I’m a big fan and there’s always lots of little plants to give away each spring.
And that is my Six On Saturday for this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed a quick look at my garden highlights and for more ‘sixes’ take a look at the site of the creator of this weekly collection. His Six on Saturday is always an excellent read and there are many more photos and blogs on twitter under the hashtag #SixonSaturday
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
Have a great weekend!
