The Doldrums of August

This is the month when I am least satisfied with the garden.The early summer outpouring of flowers is over, and the late summer bloomers are still waiting in the wings. It's a time when I pay a lot of attention to other gardens for suggestions on how to improve my own.

It's not all bad, though. Dominating the back garden is good old reliable Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm', a cascade of brilliant yellow and black.

And Geranium 'Rozanne' never gives up, churning out more little bright purple flowers every day.  (My photographs always come out too pink; the flowers at the top left and right are truer to the right colour.)

Lobelia siphilitica is doing well too with lots of sky-blue spikes. It's a rather floppy plant, but since it blooms now, and in such a lovely colour, I'm willing to give it space. It has self-seeded a little so I will have more if I want to build up a good clump of it. I suspect a lot more people would grow it if it had a change of name.

In the second photo, rosehips on a trailing stem of  'Lykkefund' have entered the frame. These will begin to turn orange and then red as the season winds down.

Ever-reliable Penstemon 'Garnet' is starting to bloom and will get better over the next few months if I keep up the deadheading.

An unexpected pleasure is a few gorgeous flowers on Clematis 'Miss Bateman'.

 It bloomed in May, as always, but I then cut it back hard as we were installing a screen behind it. Its response has been to grow vigorously and now to put out more flowers. This old variety has been around since 1869, and is one of my all-time favourites of its genus.

In the front garden, tree hydrangea (H. aspera ssp. sargentiana) continues to shift through a series of watery hues,

...while Daphne 'Eternal Fragrance' lives up to its name beside the front path. Not much to look at really, but the scent is powerful, especially in the evening, and the plant is neat, evergreen and flowers for about nine months.

Beside it is Sanguisorba 'Finale', which would be just as discreet except for its height. (I didn't expect it to grow so tall and will re-locate it when it is dormant.) At about 7 ft, it towers over me, and its little dark red thimbles of flower are hard to see. The bees certainly find them, though - it's abuzz all day with honey, bumble and mason bees as well as an assortment of wasps and other flying insects.

Also in front, Heuchera 'Marmalade' is compensating for a lack of flowers in my shadiest bed with its bold contrast of pink, lime-green and gold.

In a different shady bed, there are toad lily flowers, not very visible from a distance but spectacular if you get up close. This is Tricyrtis hirta 'Blue Wonder'. I've never had much luck with the species, but this particular cultivar seems more robust and has larger, more vibrant flowers.

Behind it is the purple foliage of Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty', a subtle, but welcome addition to the predominant green. Its shepherd's-crook flowers look rather like seedheads right now. Within a week or two they will open into long white bottlebrushes.

Where true seedheads are appearing, however, they're providing some extra interest

Allium sphaerocephalum,

 ,... and  Clematis 'Durandii' are two such contributors.









 But neither can compete with Paeonia obovata, which is doing a good impression of a small alien landing in the garden.

 I tend not to notice our collection of Sempervivums out near the back lane, alongside our car space, perhaps because they are always there, always the same. But those are attributes I should appreciate more, especially because these are all named varieties from an Ontario nursery that sadly no longer does mail order.

I haven't kept track of which is which, although I still have the list of about 10 names.

Finally, even if the ornamental occupants of the garden are taking a break, there's always the pleasure of vegetables ripening to compensate.
It's been a good year for tomatoes,

Black Cherry

San Marzano

... as well as green beans,

Blue Lake

...not mention lettuce, arugula, broccoli and onions.

July Delights

Several lovely things bloomed in July. Among them were all my poppies, which have mutated into a collection of singles, doubles and semi-doubles in a variety of colours.

 

My one and only daylily, 'Wild Wine' gave them some competition, although it's slow to bulk up - only two stems of flowers this year.

Tree hydrangea, Hydrangea aspera subsp. sargentiana is a quieter but more complex flower, opening pale pink and white then shifting to blue and white.










 A much smaller, more delicate hydrangea, H. serrata 'Beni', one of this year's acquisitions, is settling in well and shows off its cherry-red flowers nicely against a backdrop of variegated hosta.

Mosquito grass Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde' catches all the sunlight in its elegant flowerheads floating on fine wiry stems.

Some plants that flowered earlier in the year are already living up to their promise of more than one season's interest by now producing a different kind of show. Rosa pimpinellifolia, having flowered back in June, is covered in glowing deep-red hips and playing host to numerous ladybugs.

...and Clematis 'Durandii' is producing seedheads like shiny golden pinwheels among the chartreuse leaves of Hydrangea 'Sikes Dwarf'. It's also still producing occasional cobalt-blue flowers like the one I photographed in an earlier post.

Not far away, the first cyclamen are emerging among the fronds of a Korean fern.

Meanwhile, at the front of the house, the lavender I was eagerly awaiting in June made a scented July display,

... an interesting comparison with the photo below in my previous post.

Up Front

I tend to focus on my back garden as that's the sunny side and the side I look out at most often from inside the house. However, the street side is looking much more filled in this year too. My lavender hedge has flourished and is right against the sidewalk now, full of buds that will open in the next couple of weeks. Behind it, the red peonies I moved from the back garden have settled in nicely.

The house makes a good backdrop for a tree hydrangea just coming into bud and, on the far right, the lovely grey foliage and small pink flowers of Rosa glauca.

Because it's so shady, most of this corner relies on foliage for effect, so even small flowers have a significant impact.

On the other side of the front steps, also in considerable shade, the leaves of Heuchera 'Marmalade' outshine its small cream flowers. Their red stems complement the flowers of Dicentra 'Valentine' in the background.

Everything in the Garden's Lovely

Everyone I've spoken to agrees: this spring has seen just the right combination of sunshine and rain to encourage plants to do their best. Gardens are brimming with enthusiastic
flowers and foliage.
Peonies have been magnificent, and 'Festiva Maxima' has filled my garden with the fragrance of its big white blooms splashed with crimson.

My unknown reds have been spectacular too,

while the pinks, having waited respectfully for the others to finish, are now producing a succession of ruffled flowers.

More pink and red shows up in 'Rosa Mundi', one of my favourite Old Garden Roses.

 

Another rose, 'Ghislaine de Féligonde' is weighed down by so many trusses of flowers that it's bursting through the back fence and trailing into the lower garden.




































 Back in May it was already promising this profusion with a huge number of buds in each spray.

Even the shadiest corners of the garden are flickering with more subtle colour.

 I love the contrasting black stems and grass-green leaves of Hydrangea nigra in the foreground,

and farther back the starry white flowers of Gillenia trifoliata against the chocolate foliage of Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty'.

Just peeking in to the left side of the main photo are the yellow flowers of Aquilegia longissimum, which look to me like small yellow squid navigating through their ocean of air.

Since it's a species, I'm hoping to collect some seeds to share with my gardening friends.

Another shady specimen that is pleasing me is a dwarf rhododendron. I've always delighted in being somewhat anti-rhododendron in this rhododendron-mad part of the world, but 'Little Vixen', a gift from my friend Dana, has such wonderful foliage, I can't help but love it. From above, it appears to have quite ordinary crisp green leaves, but the indumentum (that fuzzy stuff on the undersides) is a striking velvety plum colour. The only way to appreciate it is to have it as close to eye-level as possible so I've plunked it in the middle of a birdbath (which wasn't very attractive anyway and is now the perfect pedestal.)

I can't help noticing how many birds and bees have been attracted to the garden this year with so much bounty to offer in nectar and pollen. Both a visiting hummingbird and all the bees are particularly attracted to Nectaroscordum siculum, an onion relative with pale striped flowers.

The bees are also keen on a very pretty crimson and silver clover I've acquired.

Scrambling through oakleaf hydrangea 'Sikes' Dwarf', Clematis 'Durandii' uses the bright foliage of the hydrangea as a backdrop for its intensely blue flowers. 'Durandii' is one of the non-clinging types of clematis, needing some kind of twiggy partner for its stems to flop onto. It will be gone before the hydrangea's own white flowers open.

What all of this means is that the first part of the garden that I tackled is now looking pretty filled in. Such gaps as there are tend to be along the edges and I plan to seek out more low-growing but well-behaved little plants to fill these in. Overall, however, I'm pleased at how the garden is maturing.

April Flowers

We have just returned from four weeks in England and the change in the garden during that month has been amazing.
Before we left, in the last week of April, I was photographing the spring bloomers like my favourite tulip 'Spring Green'.

I like it so much not only for its crisp green and cream stripes, but also for its longevity. Other tulips I've planted last two to three years at most, but 'Spring Green' just keeps coming back as strong as ever every spring.

Muscari latifolium is another bi-coloured bulb that was blooming in April.

Like all the grape hyacinths, this one will seed itself around as long as I leave the seed pods alone. I'm hoping for a swathe of these under our old plum tree in a few years.
The same is my plan for a little wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa 'Allenii'. Of course I bought it for its name, but it's a pretty little ground cover for a shady spot.

Hostas were breaking ground by April and 'American Halo' was lighting up another dark corner.

Slugs are less attracted to its thick blue and cream leaves than to some of the other, more fragile hostas. Unfortunately since I took this photo, it's been hidden behind perennials that were scarcely visible a month ago. When it's dormant this winter, I'll move it further forward in the bed.

Finally, the day before we left,  Paeonia obovata 'Alba' opened two lovely flowers among its milk-chocolate-coloured leaves.

When I fell in love with this plant, it was quite expensive to purchase one ready to flower. I had to be content with a very young specimen that came with a warning it would take three years to reach blooming size. Part of the pleasure of gardening for me is anticipation, so I was prepared to wait. It's been worth it!

Next up: the garden at the end of May