Tag: Rudbeckia

Colourful July

Published on by Catherine25 Comments

I’m back again for Six on Saturday now that my visiting family have returned home. The house is quiet except for the whirring of the washing machine as it deals with the mountain of towels and the heaps of bedding outside each bedroom door. I’m doing my best to ignore it all, because the garden is calling me back.

The garden is heavy with colour right now, but individual plants, and in particular, the roses, are damaged by the heavy downpours of the previous week. I haven’t had the time to get round everything with pruners to tidy them up, but before my family returned home, my daughter and my 14 yr old grandson son spent an afternoon in the garden deadheading the roses. Alas, more heavy rain has thundered down since then and now I’m having to repeat the process by myself.

Here’s my selection of six photographs for Six on Saturday.

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Overwintering Rudbeckias

Published on by Catherine8 Comments

The ‘Enchanted’ series of Rudbeckia has captured my heart over the past few years, but while they are beautiful, the plants don’t overwinter in my garden. I was inspired by Rosie when she mentioned last September that she overwintered her rudbeckias in her greenhouse and I thought it was worthwhile trying this with the Rudbeckia ‘Enchanted’ series plants.

During October the plants were potted into 3 ltr plastic pots, three of which went into the greenhouse and four into the cold frame.

There is a noticeable difference between those kept in the greenhouse and those in the cold frame. The greenhouse plants are showing good growth (perhaps too much for this time of year) while those from the cold frame have only a hint of new growth.

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Autumn Glory

Published on by Catherine28 Comments

I hope no one objects, especially our host, Jim, but I’m combining two weeks of six photos this week. One should have been posted last weekend, but in life, things happen. With me, it was a recurrence of a neck problem. Photos were ready, but I wasn’t.

I’m combining both because this will be my last week of Six on Saturday posts until next year, either in late winter or early spring, I expect what happens in the garden might decide. I hope to continue to post when I have anything worthwhile to show and say, you never know – I might even manage to get a few more photography posts online. That category has needed attention for a long time.

I have a growing number of projects to complete at home over the next few weeks, then during the October school holidays one of my daughters and her family will be arriving for a visit and finally during November through early December, I’ll be flying off for a few weeks, visiting another of our daughters and her family in the US.

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240%

Published on by Catherine27 Comments

A small island close to where I live attracts many home-grown tourists and those from further afield. The favourite activity for visitors is to hire bikes from one of the cycle hire shops and cycle around the island. This can be achieved in about an hour, though most folk take longer as they stop to admire the scenery and enjoy some ice cream or cake from a local cafe. A few days ago official figures were released for the rainfall during August (keep in mind that we still had a few days of August left) and those figures showed that rainfall for August was 240% higher than average. I can’t argue with that, the rain this month has been relentless.

One of our teenage grandsons was visiting recently and it was a challenge to find enough indoor places of interest to take him to. He thoughtfully said he was happy to be in a cooler climate since his home town in the US was having a very hot and humid summer. He hasn’t been discouraged though, as he plans to come back next year, probably in the hope that it will be a rain and wind-free visit!

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Gently Fading

Published on by Catherine27 Comments

Four weeks ago, the featured image was Hydrangea ‘Pink Annabelle’. Forgive me; I’ve used Pink Annabelle again today. The colour has started to fade to a pale parchment with hints of pink, but she’s still holding onto her beauty. Unless the lovely flowerheads become lightly coated with a glittering hoarfrost, this will be her final photo call.

Yesterday I was assured that the wasps that banned me from the garden have finally gone. I’ve been able to cautiously start working outdoors again. The forecast tells me it’s going to be dry and sunny today so I’ll be able to head out to pot up some spring bulbs! Bulb planting begins – exciting!

There are also a couple more repeats on here today simply because they’re still showing their fabulousness while others are not. The recent rain has caused many of the roses to shed their petals, making them unworthy subjects for the camera! The hostas have been devoured by garden nasties (I said a few years ago that I was done with hostas for that reason, but I found I couldn’t be without them) and I’ve started lifting and binning this year’s poor and non-productive dahlias. I’m also planning to cut back a few perennials that are taking their last gasp and pull up annuals. This will give me space to plant the tulip bulbs later in the season. Winter preparations are underway before the weather gets bad.

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