Primula Propagation and Summer Snow

Where have I been? Well here, but doing what?
Well it happens every July. I really look forward to the end of committee meetings and more time at home and in the garden, and what happens?

Well I spend more time in the garden, but not as we know it. 

July is propagation month, first the Auricula and then the old fashioned primroses.
Almost two weeks are taken up with the task. It is rather satisfying, the rows of young plants grow, you get to meet some old plant friends and you listen to a lot of radio. All good fun.

The other thing that happens in July is that it rains. This year it has excelled itself and we have had torrential downpours and it is a surreal experience sitting in a poly tunnel propagating and seeing the sheets of rain cascading down the outside. When I looked out across the hill, the woodland was steaming and for a second I was on the wet west coast of New Zealand…except I was wearing a fleece in mid summer.

This week has been much dryer and I have been back in the garden real.

After several wet weeks absence, it is very scary to see weed growth and my first task is to tackle the ones that are about to seed….lesser willow herb and bittercress. That’s quite good fun as they come out readily, the only down side is the midges, who are now here in force.

And I have made a point of lifting my eyes from the soil. Many plants have grown rapidly this past month and often surprise you.
I love the corner where many Primula florindae have flourished and are now in full flower. Fragrant and very hardy, they have all come through the past two winters, they are excellent garden plants.
They are normally a rich yellow, and there is also a lovely rich dusky orange, and a rare and lovely red.

I also revisited some of the mid summer shrubs. Flowering shrubs are not so plentiful in summer after the riotous flush of rhododendrons and azaleas, but those we have are all the more appreciated for that.

I love the white flowering ones. Just now we have Deutzia glabra  and several Hoheria . Both are lovely and stand out well against the lush dark green foliage of summer.

And then look down. Below the Deutzia the ground is covered as with a snow shower. And further along the path, Hoheria lyalli blossoms are scattered as confetti at a garden wedding. Just lovely.

Romping away after the rain

It is grey and overcast today, but perhaps we are through the gales and lashing rain of the past two days.
It was very cool first thing and I left the house with five layers, It is now after 9am, and I am down to four.

There was fresh feel to the air, but none of the wonderful after rain smells that you get on a warm day. Is anything nicer than the peppery smell of your birch leaves, a pulse of wild garlic from the stream or the lovely sharp apple scent of Rosa eglanteria. I will wait for them to return with the warnth we are all missing.

'This is the time of year when you loose control'. I heard a character on the Archers say that, when I had it on in the car yesterday evening. He said that things race away from you, and they do. It is not so much the ever present weeds; though of course they are accelerating; it is the lush growth.  Warmed in April and watered in May, many plants are romping away.

So I walk along a path, peering eagle eyed for weeds; wheeking out the seeding bittercress (I try not to hold botanical grudges, but bittercress comes near!) and than I stop think, "Were there primroses in this bed? well yes, when you look below the Geranium Jolly Bee and the Ferns, there are some yellowing primrose leaves.

Early in spring everything has its place and there is none of this exhuberant growth, but you have to adnmire it.
This is the time of year when you loose the heart to cut down and banish the Campanula lactiflora seedings and the just flowering Jacob's Ladder.

NO No No this is definately a case of less is more, the garden will be the better for less Campanula...but I'll just let it flower.

Some days I think if we went away for a year and returned we would find the garden populated by Campanula , Hardy Geraniums and Bittercress of course!

The Burning Bush - Combustible Weeding

I have spoken of the tedium, nay obsession of searching out ground elder and racing to get to bittercress and dandelions before they seed, and I have confessed my loathing of bracken. Well now we are beyond the point of no return. Suddenly there are weeds running away everywhere…well not everywhere but with 4 acres of garden they can regularly surprise you.
Well we have one answer, a flamethrower. We have had this “flame gun” for some years now. I must admit to being enthusiastic about its non chemical based powers of weed destruction, ( I choose to ignore the LPG gas) years…but I do admit to being rather nervous of it.

My husband Donald is made of sterner stuff; after all he is the real gardener around here. He can be seen regularly lugging the gun and its accompanying LPG gas cylinder around the garden blasting away at offending noxious weeds.

I recently drew his attention to a footpath where Alchemilla mollis had seeded and there were thousands of seedlings. He suggested this was a job for the flame gun.

One bright afternoon he approached the path. Now April was a very dry month. What happened next is unsure. He was flaming the path next to a squat golden Cupressus and Wooosh!

Now Donald is a Queen’s scout, but he admits to a frisson of fear. The thing roared and burst and fire ran through the shrub like lightening. It was over almost as fast as it began and mercifully after consuming the Cupressus the fire put itself out.

We can only think that the heat and sunshine had encouraged volatile oils to rise and they just needed a flame to go off. Still, a useful lesson; if a lesson it is; about dry and flamible aromatic shrubs in dry, dry weather, we have learnt it.

All a bit scary. I know gorse can be like that but maybe there are more shrubs and trees that can become a potential torch.

Ah well here comes the rain this week and a whole new germination of weeds
That is unnecessarily cynical…the garden needs it and will benefit greatly.
Where is my brown jumper.

Walking in a Woodland Wonderland

Walk along the tempting pathways. Dappled sunlight and bright foliage are everywhere. Just now the bluebells are out, they are fewer this year. Last year that the very air above them shimmered and they dissolved the daylight into a blue haze.

Instead of the blue we have a green lightness through the woods. The leaves of the rowans and birch are still fresh and salad green; the crosiers of the emerging ferns are elegant and beautiful. The oaks are a glistening bronzed green and out before the ash

Oak before Ash we are in for a splash
Ash before Oak we are in for a soak.

Good it is splash this year. , the ash are scarcely moving, even now in late May.
Throughout our woodland garden we have kept many native plants, but everywhere there are highlights and delights.

The subtle beauty of Solomon’s seal, tellima and the lovely sculptured form of emerging hostas. Hardy geraniums everywhere, but I particularly like the Irish Blue and Kashmir White at this time. Time for the pinks and magentas later.

Then there are bright islands of colour in the lighter glades. The Rhododendrons are magnificent these year and some of the large leaved forms that we have planted have done really well and are beginning to become a wonderful feature. And soon my favourites the deciduous azaleas will bloom…….. Golden Eagle, Fireball, Irene Koster and for the best scent of all, I am planting lots of Azalea luteum, the old fashioned yellow azalea found on many old estates.

Evergreens, that were very frightened by the winter are starting to shake off the brown disconsolate look; pieris has been wonderful, but osmanthus, eucryphia and even some Ilex have been very unhappy, they are much better now. It is a relief to see their new glossy leaves.

My Himalayan love affair - Meconopsis

Blue poppies are things of dreams. They startle and spell bind each time you see them in flower.

The first blooms for this year, were there today. They are early; I usually expecting them late in May and into early June. The mild, sunny, dry spring has hastened their appearance.

I saw my first Meconopsis back in 1980’s at Jack Drake’s Nursery. John Lawson who ran the nursery then was a friend and mentor and a great plantsman. He knew how to grow plants to perfection, and a day discovering his trilliums and meconopsis was a rare and lasting treat.

Why are they so entrancing, it is the quality of the petals. They are large and satin textured. In a spring of white, yellow and then the pinks and reds of our early rhododendrons, suddenly they are there, a heart stopping blue.

There are various varieties and species of course, and it is always a surprise to remember our own common welsh poppy is a meconopsis, but these Himalayan beauties are sublime.

Over the years we have tried many meconopsis from seed. Some wonderful, many unsatisfactory

It is because of this latter state that I have just gone from this page, to the Meconopsis group web site and renewed our subscription. The Meconopsis group was founded in Scotland has undertaken the heroic task of sorting out the confusion of varieties and strains of Meconopsis that were throughout Scotland and UK gardens.

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Now we grow Meconopsis sheldonii types, which settle and become perennial for us. We have some clumps of Slieve Donard that have grown well for years and a very old plant of Rogers’s nursery, which has thrived on benign neglect.

I always tell people to feed, feed, and feed them. They are gross feeders, loving animal manures if you can get it, or that wonderful smell of spring, dehydrated chicken manure; nothing like it.

Over the bank holiday weekend, I have spent the 2 sunniest days of the year so far in the dappled shade of the woodland area of the garden. This is where the blue poppies are happiest, shade but sunshine too. They like a place where they do not get too dry, and most summers we can provide that alright. Think of them amongst Bowles golden grass, Millium effusum, or amidst a stand of variegated Solomon’s seal Polygonatum oderatum variegatum

Definitely time to get back to seed exchange and visiting other gardens to continue this love affair.