CHEERFUL REDS

 It's been a while since my last post. No excuses, just the general lethargy brought on by the pandemic swirling around us.

The garden doesn't care about human pandemics, however, and has been a source of pleasure as always. I can't remember being so excited by red flowers in other years, but this summer and fall they've provided some of my most cheering moments.

My self-seeding poppies always surprise me with their variety of colours. Although they all started out as doubles, they now come in single, double and semi-double forms. Not the reds however, which are determined to remain double. This year they were as brilliant as ever, but one that was slightly less double than the rest stood out with a subtle touch of black in its heart.

An Echinacea that I recently acquired was another bright exclamation point. I can't remember its name but I'll annotate this post when I find it again

I've had Lobelia cardinalis 'Victoria' for years, loving its value as a late summer bloomer and its combination of scarlet flowers with purple foliage,

...but this year I acquired the species parent, which has grass-green leaves and is perhaps even more attractive.

A surprise this summer was the reappearance of a plant I thought I'd lost, Alstroemeria psittacina.

It only produced one flower stalk, but I'm hopeful that it will give an improved performance now it has turned up again.  When the stem broke, I brought it inside where it continued to delight us for almost two weeks before fading. Psittacina means "parrot-like", which suits it very well.

I have several clematis on the east fence, including what I believe is the only red variety, Clematis texensis 'Gravetye Beauty', 

All the texensis varieties flower from midsummer on and produce fluffy white seedheads after the flowers die. You can cut the whole plant down to about knee-high once the leaves turn brown, so there's no risk of broken stems from wind or snow and no tangle of dead leaves hanging around over the winter months. It will spring again in spring and reach a height of about 10 feet by the time it blooms.

Finally, the wonderful transformation of Hydrangea serrata 'Beni' has made it my favourite plant for this year.

'Beni' means "red" in Japanese and when this little shrub began to bloom, I thought I'd got a mislabelled specimen. Here it is in early June:

In early August:

And in late August:

By this time, there's just one last white flower and the leaves are becoming suffused with purple.

By September, the whole plant is truly living up to its name:

Two late entries in this post, both added at the end of December:

First, the fallen leaves of Rosa pimpinellifolia, whose praises I've sung for its year-round contribution to the garden. Even at the end of the year, its fallen leaves create a carpet of colour on the ground.

In the same bed, a sturdy red chard is as as ornamental in the garden as it is useful in the kitchen.