The Royals in harmony!

I should be working but just found this pic of Regal lilies and a delicious spray of Clematis Prince Charles - such a happy combination, albeit taffled up with hop leaves.

I have struggled to grow this clematis since the first I planted adjacent to the (former) Judas tree succumbed to ants. It is just about doing OK this year in a pot, although nowhere near as well as Cl. Princess Diana which has done amazingly well in a large container.... Pity as I particularly love the blue clematis.

Delicious July rain

This afternoon has brought a good downfall of soft warm rain - and an excuse not to cut the grass or pick the last of the pink gooseberries but sit down and write a new post, albeit brief! As I'm stopping in (for now) I thought it would be fun to show the Regal lilies from above, where the circular formation is seen to best advantage, an angle one seldom gets to appreciate.
The heat of the past few days has brought Kiftsgate's flowering to an end with just the remnants of the pink the petals always turn as they catch a little rain and age. After a battle to cut back rampant forsythia and bay (with attendant climbers and ramblers) from the "winter" or "patio" garden nearest the house it will soon be time to have a major all-round pruning session for Kiftsgate, Montana clematis, bay, various ivies and anything else that is rapidly getting away from manageability! But they have all been doing their bit in providing a great habitat for fledgling birds - especially baby robins who have, this year, taken over from the blackbirds in stuffing themselves full of mahonia berries. This morning I saw one helping ittself for the first time, unaided by an adult. What a digestive system they must have!
I picked a small bunch of sweet peas today, having successfully brought some on in a large pot from bought seedlings. They never seem to come out with the rich colours on the labels but their scent makes up for everything. With the honeysuckle in full bloom, Regal lilies and sweet peas the smells are quite overpowering at any time of day or night!

Lilies in the rain!

Summer colour

No time for blogging just now - but here are a couple of pictures from this week!

Yes, it IS a jungle. I just can't find enough time to spend in it! Not that that's much of an excuse.

Cosmos seeds speedy germination

Thanks to The Garden magazine for saying it's not too late to plant Cosmos seeds in June for late summer flowering. I planted up a few pots last Saturday and here they are popping up only a week later, in spite of germination time on the pack marked as 15-20 days!

peonysenvy

What a brilliant name for a web site with comprehensive advice on how to grow great peonies - see peonysenvy.com

This year my white peonies are both doing very well, unlike the common deep pink form which seems to be sulking about being disturbed while a nearby fence panel was replaced, or, more likely, it is too much overshadowed by the rampant Rosa Canary Bird which is STILL flowering, making it harder for me to commit to moving it to goodness knows where. If I can't find a new space for it I may have to resort to putting it out for adoption. This weekend I was thrilled that about 10 pots of lily of the valley I put outside the house with a Help Yourself notice all disappeared - so great to share plants!
Except for Kiftsgate which is budding up as well as ever, all the roses are now flowering, seemingly benefiting from increased light levels and the mid-season clematis have begun to flower - exciting to see the first delicate nodding heads of pale pink-mauve Betty Corning. Cl. Princess Diana is doing really well in a pot on top of the stump of the Judas tree, apparently unaffected by ants this year.
First buds of R. Prince Charles opening with Allium Christophii and a rubbish picture (taken in poor light) of R. William Morris with its lovely old fashioned, many-folded centre. In spite of the administrations of Greensleeves my grass is definitely suffering from being too overshadowed. I am experimenting with an increased watering regime so it's at least less stressed. One area only gets about an hour of direct sunlight a day, which is asking quite a lot of it.
I also need to learn the lesson of keeping my fruit area clearer. The superb crop of foxgloves is taking over the strawberry patch (and will doubtless self-seed even further) and I need to hard-prune my remaining gooseberry bush as it is covered in a great mass of very small fruit - no fun for picking or topping and tailing.
Geraniums, alliums and dahlia plants are all doing well and I was pleasantly surprised to find some Nicotiana Lime Green st Wyevale garden centre on Saturday. Just need a few more hours each day....

Irresistible alliums

Alliums are so cheerful and so undemanding I just have to keep photographing them. This year there are even more - from what seemed like threads of grass a couple of years back, new flowering plants are actually competing with previously-rampant crocosmia. I have lost track of which varieties the earlier forms are but these three stems particularly caught my eye as the sun crept along the garden path this morning.

I failed to remember to thin out the allium christophii again since last season so their blooms are getting smaller as they fight for space but at least, since the removal of the trees, they are growing more upright and promise to be a picture beneath the many buds forming on rosa Prince Charles.
My one remaining hosta is standing up well against mollusc attack but these little stripey snails are worth hunting out!

".... Get me out of here."

So seldom do "strangers" come into the garden that I am always surprised by their responses. Today a neighbour's son was trying to help prop up a leaning fence post and popped round for my sledge hammer. Just beyond the greenhouse he announced he wasn't going any further (and I can't blame him with Rosa Canary Bird still doing its thing right across the path so you have to contort yourself around it) before then asking if they film "I'm a celebrity...." here as it is just like a jungle! I don't seem to be able to convey this in my pictures but then if I did, no-one would see anything much!
Today was a brilliant gardening day - a whole bank holiday of it - and I managed to get most things reasonably under control. Main objectives were a general tidy-up, trim and tie-back of perennials, dig out some of the mass of Lily of the Valley and dig up the tulip bulbs (I know, terrible but I just don't have space to let them die back) and seek out the dahlias which have overwintered and give them some light and slug-deterrent support. While removing the tulip foliage I found plenty of slugs and snails although the worst damage they do is to a large clump of white bearded irises growing behind the greenhouse. Just as whole stems of buds are about to open they are gobbled right through. Happily this has not happened to the ones nearer the house which stand out so serenely against the deep blue ceanothus.
Another plant which sits well with it is Clematis "Royal Velour" whose first lush bloom appeared this week.
The fruit area seems to be flourishing. In spite of the influx of Lily of the Valley and a mass of self-set foxgloves my blackcurrant bush has about four times more flowers than ever before, there are plenty of strawberries and the gooseberry bush is laden. I love to have an area where I can let the foxgloves do their own thing. They are one of the easiest and most successful biennials to transplant and so valuably fill a boring gap in dull shade.
I have despatched well over a dozed lily beetles this year and decided to pull up any non-flowering bulbs as they seem a great attraction, although I also found an orange-menace on an allium today. So far the later-flowering Lilium Formosanum cultivars seem to be fairly immune to lily beetles.
With regard to larger wildlife, a squirrel very nearly ran straight into me the yesterday morning - not expecting me to be there! But the bird population seems quite different this year. I have frequently seen a magpie passing through the garden and flocks of jackdaws flying about with their loud laughing and chuckling cries. There are the parakeets, red kites and I even saw a heron fly over today but other than robins and blackbirds and a few more sparrows than in recent years the smaller finches and tits seem to have all but vanished - my nesting box remains empty!
Enough rambling. Here are three first roses: Iceberg, extraordinarily formed almost like an old-fashioned noisette rose, Pat Austen and Warm Welcome, both well-complimented by the wisteria.