Month: June 2014

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ finally has made an appearance. I bought this in Plantagen at the end of the season last year with a few other plants.

It was literally holding on by its roots……..

I planted it up and kept an eye on it and it has come back to full health…..and today it has finally opened up and given me those beautiful flowers. It was certainly worth the wait.

I got it wrong about the first tomato. This one is ahead. Of course  you may doubt me as it was not taken on the plant, but that is the position and I will have it to morrow.

I have three sisters – Sheila, Penny and Lucia. So far I have managed to acquire roses with the names ‘Sheila’s Perfume’, and ‘Penny Lane’. Still waiting to find one with the name Lucia (or maybe Lucy). 

‘Sheila’s Perfume’ opened today, but the scent was a lot stronger last year. Still beautiful, though.

I only have two hydrangeas. One in the back – petiolaris – which basically does ‘nothing’ (will be moved to a different location soon), and a lovely white one in the front. The white one is going to put on a real show this year I think. It’s starting!

It has been raining since lunchtime but just in the last few minutes it is lashing down. The garden needs rain after the last few weeks of sunny dry weather. This morning I picked a few flowers from the garden as I like to look at them close up and enjoy the scent in the house. I am really pleased with the poppy that arrived last year.

To day (not so warm) on inspecting the tomatoes, I noticed a bit of red on one. all others are still green including the other fruit shown.

My mum gave me this Echeveria, a seedling she got from one of her own plants. I saw it flower for her but it never did here until this year. I changed its compost in spring and put it in compost for cacti and succulents, and it looks like this made a difference. Or perhaps it was the mild winter, or perhaps just the plant being more mature, you never know with plants, do you? In any case, I’m delighted to see the flower coming up 🙂

I was disappointed last year that my supposedly self-pollinating blueberry plant did not produce anything, but it is making up for it this year, and is covered in fruit! They are still green, but it’s going to be time to protect them as the birds may get interested in them soon…

I got up to see this anniversary heart on the lawn. All say ‘ahhhhh’. He’s a sweetheart as well as handy with a spade! 

Mind you, he couldn’t have done this in 1976 – three months of drought and there wasn’t any grass, much less flowers going spare. Luckily I had an artificial bouquet as I got very bad hay fever in those days. We were able to get corsages for the mums but no carnations (remember those at weddings?) because of the drought. 

Now that was a summer!

How did I do that – not requesting Andyf7 to be a friend!!!

Tuesday turned out to be a lovely sunny day – ideal for our Open Garden.  Last minute rush with an extra cake to make, weeds to remove, paint tins to hide (we are painting the outside of the house) before visitors start arriving, which they did this time on the dot at 11am!!

Got the shock of my life when approached by a tall mysterious handsome man who in a soft Dublin accent gave the impression that I should know him – a real charmer   I have to say!!!!  You’ll have realised by now –  it was Andyf7.  You could have knocked me down with a feather – I was so surprised.  I tell you ladies, if I had a visitors’ book the comments wouldn’t have been about the garden………………….

Seriously though, it was so nice to meet up with Andy.  He was so generous with the plants that he brought me – real stunners that will go in my cottage cottage when I re-jig it towards the end of this summer.  The gift of the plants are just the thing to stir me into action this year. Andy,  I will take great care of them and THANK YOU again.  Thanks also for putting up photos showing our garden in a different light!!!   I mustn’t forget to mention all my other visitors who were also so generous with their donations and plants!!

Photo here of Clematis ‘piiliu’ (little duckling) originating from Estonia.  I bought plant 3 years ago from Lidl.  Read on internet that it’s not that easy to find………………… I’m thrilled to bits with it.  

Next Tuesday we open again – 2nd of our 4 openings and if anyone is in the area please feel free to call in…………………….

Here is another little beauty. I love the colour on this. 

I had this last year and when it had gone over I literally pulled it up and stuck it at the back of the pear tree. Not thinking it would survive if I’m honest. 

But it did and it has been flowering now for ages. It’s generally used as an annual as it’s short lived , but in this case there seems to be no stopping it. 

It’s amazing to see how many flowers just three bulbs are producing this year, and still plenty to open.

Was on an overnight stay with Greta on Monday night. It’s always great to see how much she has done in the garden, despite her lack of mobility. However, this is only temporary. She’ll be tearing around her garden very soon, and there’ll be no stopping her. If I have half her determination when I get to that age, I will consider myself to be very blessed.

Just posted an album if you care to take a look.

This was recently added to the Conservatory as an “Outdoor/Indoor Lean-to…I’m more at ease with a Chisel and Hammer…it’s stocked with Sweetpea and Stock to give you a Perfume smell as you open the Conservatory Door…coupled with the Handing Baskets and Grasses it’s turning into a Jungle which is what I want…

  The Photo is a few weeks old and other Plants have since been added…the Flower Bed at the Front has also been Planted and Climbers are now beginning to stretch their Limbs and hopefully before Summers end they will be up beyond the Rail surround to eventually cover the entire Frame…these to are Scent smelling Climbers…the Lamp Standard in front also has 3 Baskets each in full Bloom…

To day being so different from a week ago, in fact from every day in over a week, I decided that as I had gooseberries picked, topped and tailed, that i would make the gooseberry jam, the first this year. I got almost ten pounds of jam from the four pounds that were topped and tailed.

Not too many flowers on it this year again but it is a beauty and it smells divine!

This year I see flower buds on all my agapanthus except for one, so I’m happy. On this particular one I counted 14 buds so it should look good in a few weeks, it’s a white one.

When I think of my garden in June, this is the picture that always springs to mind. Geranium sanguineum striatum and trailing Campanula (I am not sure of the variety, I thought it was poscharskyana but the leaves are different).

The geranium starts flowering around the end of May, and continues for a good while, then disappears into the ground in winter.

The campanula is like this for two weeks at most, always in June, then is a small mound of leaves for the rest of the year, pretty uninteresting but it earns its place in the garden through this lovely show of flowers every June!

This campanula grew in a pot in our old conservatory, and when we moved we divided it and planted it out. It was a bit shocked at first but now it’s really spreading. I love the way it’s colonising the gorse. 

The tall plants in the picture have sat doing very little for over a year. I thought they were .ie swaps from Johnstown 2013 but have looked them up and I don’t think they were. Now they’ve grown about a metre and are coming into bloom, and I still have no idea what they are! Any ideas?