Late flowers are arriving!
As we head towards high summer some areas of the garden are looking jaded and past their best. However all is not lost. Around the garden late summer flowers are starting to come to the fore, including Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium), which stands head and shoulders above us and everything else nearby. Another area is evolving into an autumn bed. There is a Stipa gigantea along with Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, Heleniums, Michaelmas daisies and Dahlias. The planting still looks a little muddled but will be refined over time. A hardy agapanthus provides some contrast to orange dahlias, which I have just planted out as they were drying out too much in their clay pots. This area will provide much needed colour for the rest of the year and is a magnet for clouds of butterflies. Catmint planted alongside the gravel path from the front gate is growing too well. Now that the flowers are over I have cut back all the straggly growth that was preventing us from walking along the path. To my delight though, I found two campanulas have self-seeded into the gravel. One is blue, name unknown, and the other is Campanula makaschvilii, which has pretty white fluted flowers. Both will have to remain until their seeds can be harvested – visitors will have to jump over them for the time being! Planted behind the catmint is a perennial sunflower, which is covered in deep golden flowers. The only problem being that it is very invasive and is growing through the middle of neighbouring shrubs. I pulled out armfuls last winter, but still it spreads. it was bought from a garden society plant stall – and now I understand why the person selling it looked so relieved as I carried it away! I have been busy taking cuttings of penstemons, herbs and shrubs and the propagator is full to bursting.
Tales from a Country Garden 