Six on Saturday: My Garden in June
It’s hard to believe that when I last wrote about #mylittlegarden at the end of May, I was talking about the lack of rain. For most of June we have seen very little else and it’s only the last few days that it’s started to feel like summer.
The garden is looking very green and lush with new flowers emerging by the day and it’s been fantastic to see the arrival of a couple of Painted Lady butterflies this week. With the flowers of the verbena and buddleja just starting to open there’s plenty of food around for them so hopefully I will have lots more flutterby visitors in the coming weeks.
So what have been the highlights in the garden…
Thalictrum Elin is magnificently tall and therefore a bit of a challenge to photograph as the flowers wave elegantly around in the slightest breeze. I love the way the purple stems and leaves emerge every spring and grow so fast you can almost see the changes by the minute.
This geranium won Chelsea plant of the century back in 2013 and it’s easy to see why. It blooms constantly over the summer and is such good value for money. In a small garden like mine I need plants that have a long season of interest and this delivers beautifully. Oh, and it’s not attractive to slugs which have been a bit of an issue this spring!
When I originally planted this rose, it was in partial shade behind an acer and has never performed particularly well. As the tree has now gone, I pruned the rose very hard this year to give it a chance to show me what it can do. The new growth is not as strong as I expected and it needs lots of support so I need to decide what to do for next year.
This was the first of my salvias to flower, and I love both it’s colour and long lasting flowers.
I have a few varieties of astrantia in the garden but Shaggy is possibly my favourite. The flowers are very photogenic and the pollinators just love it.
I posted this photo on Twitter earlier this week and I was really pleasantly surprised by the interest that it generated. Also known as Salvia flava var. megalantha, I bought the plant last year from the nursery at Stonyford Cottage Gardens. Although I could only see a picture of the flowers at that stage, I thought it was quite unusual. The flowers themselves are very pretty in close up but the plant is dominated by these large hairy leaves that the slugs just love. I am growing it in a container with copper tape around the pot as a slug deterrent and so far so good…… but the jury’s still out on whether I really like it or not!
And that is my Six On Saturday for this month. 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.
