We have had rain! At last we had a decent amount overnight with the promise of more to come this weekend, thank goodness. So many plants are now flowering, it was this weekend that we used to open for the NGS as the whole garden is frothing, especially the roses, colour everywhere you look. It makes it very difficult to decide what to include for my special six for today, here we go………..
No 1
Meet Bartzella an Itoh peony, isn’t she gorgeous! A present to myself along with 2 others, she has flowered for over a week but the rain last night…..!
No 2
My very special candelabra seedling which appeared last year, this year it has split into 2 plants, I feel a drift coming on with a bit more splitting over the years! This has sat with its roots in flood water for about 5 months in the winter so I will also save seed as a lot of my other candelabra primulas died over the winter with all the water.
No 3
Allium gigantium, this is the only one left after a good number of years, I feel it needs more friends around it, it seems very lonely, so I will buy a few more this autumn.
No 4
Rosa glauca looking very pretty in the back garden, it has a second period of interest when it is covered with hips in the autumn.
No 5
Rosa Wedding Day, which is climbing up the old Ash tree in the back garden, was planted to mark my daughter’s marriage 24 years ago.
It is a lovely rose, the buds start off quite golden but soon turn white. The rose has climbed up to the top of the tree which must be about 100ft at least!
No 6
The “meadow” area is looking good, with loads more Pig Nut than previously. Amazing to think that our ancestors used to eat the tiny tubers to keep them going in the winter, you’d need to eat an awful lot of them, this is before the potato arrived with Sir Walter Raleigh! The bees and the birds are very active in this area, lots of insects to keep the birds happy.
There we have it for this week, six more plants that catch the eye. Hopefully we will have more rain to make the garden and the gardener happy, in the meantime I’ll keep pulling up the weeds!
Thanks to Jim, our host at Garden Ruminations for hosting once more, do pop over to see what other gardeners are getting up to.
I envy you the rain, not a drop here. I love Itoh peonies too. The flowers are very long lasting. My Duchesse de Nemours bloom lasted for 5 days whilst the Itoh looked good for more than 10 days. I love your Primula seedling, such a pretty colour.
We didn’t get very much rain Chloris and none since last night, from the weather forecast you are going to get a lot tomorrow! My herbaceous peonies last well over 2 weeks with no rain, but Bartzella was rather beaten last night unfortunately. The primula is a very special seedling which just suddenly appeared last year, I will have to save seed if it is going to be ok in standing water all winter, not many of the others survived.
Is the Itoh peony a tall peony? I did not know this variety but the photo shows a very beautiful flower, rather open compared to the peonies I know
No Fred, Itoh peonies are smaller than the herbaceous varieties and they sometimes flower again in the autumn. They used to be very expensive as they are a hybrid between a tree peony and an herbaceous one, but now with micro propagation, the cost has come down a lot, making them more affordable.
I don’t know pig nuts I shall look them up. I do love that peony.
Sorry Rosie, I forgot to put the proper name, can never remember it, Conopodium majus, according to my Sarah Raven book of wild flowers. It is like a very small cow parsley and peasants, in the Middle Ages, used to get their pigs to turn the soil over and they could then get the tubers, but they are only tiny!
I was about to ask the same question as Fred about the peony and then saw you’d answered him. It is lovely, it may well be going onto my I want one list, as I’m already know where I’d want it to go.
They really are lovely aren’t they Angela, I also bought First Arrival and Cora louise but they aren’t into flowering mode yet. It’s always good to know where they are going to go before you buy them, I know where mine are going but I have to get the border ready for them yet!
Six on Saturday is always good for making me see plants I think I don’t like in a completely different light. That candelabra primula is beautiful, and how amazing that it survived 5 months of floods – it’s definitely a keeper!
The candelabra primulas do like damp soil Helen, but this one has done really well to survive sitting in water all winter, must sow its seeds!
Love your meadow! 😘🌸🌼 Was it hard opening your garden to the public? That Wedding Day is exquisite too!
Thanks Sarah, I’m very pleased with it and I think the wildlife likes it too, lots of bees come to the flowers and the birds are always searching for insects.
Yes, it was hard work opening the garden to the public for the National Garden Scheme, they demand such a high standard of maintenance and we do have 2/3rds of an acre to keep tidy. We had to stop when I developed a muscle problem in my legs and couldn’t do so much gardening any more.
Bartzella is very gorgeous indeed.
She is isn’t she Graeme, thank you!
Rosa Wedding Day is really quite spectactular Pauline and R glauca has such lovely foliage. I have also fallen in love with Bartzella! I am still waiting for my first Itoh to flower….so exciting.
It’s quite spectacular Denise, but I can’t get a photo of it all at once, I can’t get far enough away before i fall into another border!Bartzella was so beautiful for just one week when we had a bit of rain and all the petals were on the ground next morning, just another year to wait, hope yours open soon.
I just love that delicate peony, great that it’s long lasting too.Beautiful roses and a really healthy looking meadow.xxx
Thanks Dina, Thepeony looked wonderful for a week but then a little shower overnight brought the petals down. I was hoping for some substantial rain today, but nothing arrived, it passed me by! I’m so pleased with the meadow, it gets better each year and is full of wildlife.x
I am so pleased you had some rain, Pauline, even if it wasn’t a lot, and were promised more at the weekend – hope you got it. We are well topped up here now and after a wet morning today lots of the taller plants are hanging their heads with the weight of raindrops. Your Wedding Day rose is stupendous – and I guess you don’t (can’t!) really prune it at all? And of course no deadheading either! I had no idea ‘pig nuts’ were so small
We didn’t get any more rain last weekend Cathy, and have only had a couple of light sprinklings since, I’m still waiting for proper rain! Rosa Wedding Day doesn’t get pruned at all, she is spreading into the next trees, I wonder when she will stop. I don’t intend to dig up the pig nuts to see how small they are, they are for the peasants to eat by the way, not the pigs!