There will be no gardening this weekend, the winds are too high and we have rain. Planting has been interrupted. I started planting mid-week by getting some dahlias into 20 litre pots and burying them in the borders (with the help of husband who had to dig the holes!). Four are in, one more will follow once it recovers from having most of its new growth munched by snails. Number six needs to decide whether it’s going to produce shoots or not. I suspect not. A further three small dahlias will be transferred into pots, to sit on the patio during the long, warm and lazy summer days that I’m dreaming about.
Some Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Double Click Mix’ and three Achillea ‘Lilac Beauty’ have been planted in the same area as three of the dahlias, while in and around the greenhouse, plants are in various stages hardening off or just putting on weight. Several pots and larger planters have been filled too.
On Thursday I sat in the study with my lunch on my to desk to watch our First Minister give the first details about easing the lockdown in Scotland. It was much as expected, just a gentle easing in some areas, but it will give us a little bit of hope that we’re going to get through this pandemic. For gardeners, from next Thursday, garden centres will be allowed to open, but I won’t be hurrying to join the queues to get in. For me personally, I’m just not ready to face the big outdoors right now.
What I am looking forward to is having my nearby family allowed to come along and spend time with us in the garden, on a warm, sunny day. So…what’s the forecast for next Thursday onwards? 14-16C, moderate breeze, some light rain (just enough to water the garden please – and at night if possible) plus sunny spells. OK, I think I can cope with that.
Heuchera ‘Lime Rickey’
Three mounds of H. Lime Rickey sit together in this border, two grown from divisions of the main plant over the past few years. Lime Rickey has nice little ruffled leaves, none which are currently lime, and many are suffering wind damage. But new, true-lime growth is pushing through, and its wavy flower spikes are always a welcome sight.
Allium ‘Purple Sensation’
These were planted around three years ago with plenty of added grit for drainage, but not all have reappeared this year, perhaps just too much winter rain fell on our heavy clay soil. They’ve returned in groups of two or just singles, and in some cases, there are leaves but no flowers. If they remain upright with the heads intact over the winter, I’ll lift them in early spring and replace them with fresh bulbs…and even more grit incorporated into the soil.
Clematis montana ‘Tetrarose’
This is a plant in the wrong place. The location wasn’t wrong when it was first planted, but subsequent planting that has grown around it has left it in too much shade. Despite watering and feeding, it hasn’t flowered much in recent years, and most of the flowers that do appear are in a nearby tree. It needs to be moved – it’s too pretty to be hidden away.
Geum Update
Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ has been putting on weight and looking pretty good in recent weeks. She’s so photogenic and happy to scramble amongst nearby planting. In the shot below you can see one of the two rusty bows that are holding some of the stems upright. From a normal viewing distance, they’re not visible – I use quite a number of them throughout the garden – I like the way that they blend so well into the planting.
I bought a pack of six geum plug plants during early April, but they were in a rather sorry state when they arrive after a bank holiday weekend. I kept them in the greenhouse for a number of weeks where they’ve been growing well. I don’t expect to get a great deal of growth or flowers from them this year, but that isn’t important, as they were intended for next year’s planting.
Clematis Unknown
Once up a time, where this clematis is growing there was a trellis, and on that trellis, there was a rose (Rosa Handel) and a clematis, variety unknown. But as I’ve mentioned before, this is a windy garden, and the trellis blew down in a storm, taking with it, the plants that had been climbing it. I think this clematis is possibly the one that had been on the trellis.
For the past few years, it has been scrambling around at ground level, just weaving in and out of border plants and over the ground. Last year it was starting to get in the way, and I was tripping on it, so I took a rusty bow (all I had at the time) and in early spring started winding the clematis around it. My technique left a bit to be desired, and it’s hasn’t given quite the effect I was looking for, but I’ll try again next year with a different support.
Polemonium caeruleum (Jacobs Ladder)
I seem to recall that this plant, which has been in the garden for a few years, didn’t do too well last year, so I bought some seeds of Polemonium ‘Blue Pearl’ and White Pearl Mix which I thought would be a good replacement. However, none of the seeds germinated, but, nice surprise, this year the polemonium bounced back and is flowering well.
Stay safe and stay healthy. 🌈 If it’s not too stormy where you are, enjoy your garden this weekend.
If you want to join in with photographs of your own, here are the details:
ABOUT SIX ON SATURDAY
Six on Saturday is like a weekly journal. Take six photographs and post them to Twitter and/or your blog. You can get all the details from The Propagator who kindly set it all up. If you want to join in and see what everyone else is doing in the garden, just follow the link!
All photographs copyright of Catherine Wood unless otherwise stated.
Notes From My Garden 
I was looking for some time ago a clematis montana, and I can admit that yours would have interested me as its color pleases me.
Your flowers of geums are putting on a show in your garden ( and especially in front of this pretty terracotta pottery )
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Thank you, Fred. I’m quite taken with geums at the moment and hope to add a few more varieties next year, particularly from the very pretty cocktail series.
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What beautiful colours and lovely clear photos. That heuchera at the start is so unusual, I haven’t seen such pale colours before. My excuse for the alliums not flowering in my garden was clay soil, but today you and “30 days of wild parenting” have spoiled that one. Never mind, it’s raining just now so I can cross “water garden ” off my To Do list although not enough gets to the troughs and pots, also the tomatoes in the greenhouse need to be done.
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Yes, it’s raining here too, but I was forced to go out and water the plants in the greenhouse this morning. Can’t grumble, we’ve had a fabulous spell of good weather during most of May.
I’m wondering if I can just sink next year’s allium bulbs into the soil in pots, with plenty of drainage below. I wonder if that would work – because mine are definitely not performing as well as they should…
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I don’t really know, this is my first year with alliums. I’m hoping they may improve but I will bury them a little deeper.
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That is a heuchera I haven’t heard of, which isn’t saying much, and I love both the name and the colour. That geum is special, and I love those plant supports. Have a great week, don’t feel pressurised into doing more than you want to, and take care. 🙂
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The Heuchera will deepen in colour as we go through summer, and become more lime. I think it might be one of the older varieties.
Enjoy your week too! I hope the weather is good to you.
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Beautiful flowers again this week! But, my favorite was Lime Rickey! We have had nothing but rain, lockdown, rain, lockdown, rain and more rain!
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Thank you. 😊 We’ve had a really good spring as far as weather goes, but it’s reverted to our ‘normal’ weather now – wind and rain. I hope your spell of rainy weather eases off soon, and also your lockdown.
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Beautiful – this just kept getting better and better. The geums reminded me of Chihuly’s garden in Seattle.
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My goodness – the glass sculptures in the glasshouse are incredible! Thanks for the prompt – it’s always good to see inspiring work.
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I’m glad the Jacobs Ladder bounced back. Some of my purple ones have just started to flower. It’s nice to see some close ups of what my new Scarlet Tempest Geum will look like once/if it flowers. Those alliums looks lovely.
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It will flower. If I can grow it – then it will be a doddle for you. 😁 I’m sure you’ll love it when it does.
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So many Six on Saturday-ers have geum, and I don’t. I must remedy that soon! Just gorgeous.
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I’m a fairly recent convert to them. My sister chose one for me a few years ago, for a half barrel that I have in the front garden. I failed to appreciate that it needed to be well watered and deadheaded regularly and lost it. I learned from that, and this one now gets a lot of TLC. 😁
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Heuchera Lime Rickey is very similar to Lime Marmalade – a lovely fresh colour. I don’t think my Heucherellas or Tiarellas have survived the wet winter. One is making a brave attempt to grow, but I don’t hold out much hope. Maybe I should dig it up and put it in a pot for a while. As for your Geum words fail me! What a star. I only hope my two grow as well. How old is your plant? Lovely photos as usual Cathy. Have a lovely time with the family, you are lucky they live close by.
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I dig up smaller plants that look as if they’re dying and pot them up, trying to give them the conditions they like best. Some pull through, some don’t but it’s always worth the attempt. A few weeks ago I lifted two clematis that didn’t flower last year and this year had barely any growth on one and none on the other. I potted them both and tucked them into a sunny corner outside the greenhouse with tubs in front to provide shade for the roots. One is now growing fairly well, but there’s nothing from the other. I’ll dispose of that one and hope that the other will flower next year. It’s worth a try with your Heucherellas too.
There are two Geums, something I tend to forget, one sits in front of the pot and the other, offset, behind. They were both planted in the spring of 2017 – and they were small plants.
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Thank you for the advice. I think I will dig up the poorly Tiarella and see if I can revive her.
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The geum is looking fabulous and even your mail order ones are looking healthy. I love the photos of the alliums. My purple sensation have done really well this year (on clay) but they were planted years and years ago. I wonder whether it takes that long for the seedlings to get to flowering size, while the original bulbs have perhaps long since disappeared.
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Interesting thought about the allium bulbs – and it’s good to know that yours do well on clay. I feel I don’t know enough about Alliums to deal with their problems correctly, I think I’ll have to do some reading on the subject, but I’ll plant a new batch just to make sure that I get a better result next spring.
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Could the clematis be ‘Blue Light’. http://www.clematisontheweb.org/new-clemdetail.cfm?dbkey=695 It seems to be a very variable variety and there are a few pictures on this link to compare it with.
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‘Blue Light’ does seem to be a clematis of many faces. I’m not sure that this is the same Jim, but I’ll take another look tomorrow to see if the outer petals have unfurled, as the markings on them seem to be quite distinctive.
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The allium are stunning.
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Thank you, not quite their best, but hoping for a better display next year.
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My goodness, what a fab collection of plants. All gorgeous. I love the heuchera, and also the burgundy one doing battle with the geum, which is also a striking specimen. I have Mrs Bradshaw in my garden and she seems very happy.
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I’m hoping I’ll have a lovely Mrs Bradshaw in the borders by next year too. I do like that expression ‘doing battle with the geum’ – going by appearance, it’s fairly accurate too. 😂
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Such a beautiful and colourful Six! You do have a lovely selection of Heuchera, and the Geum looks spectacular! I do like the rusty bows you use as plant supports.
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I think the fame of the rusty bow is spreading. I need a few more, but they’re sadly out of stock. They disappear nicely into the background, unlike many of the green-coated supports.
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I agree there. They are really effective!
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They are just perfect!
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