Growing like mad!
A plant-packed suburban London garden that is accessible all year.
Ibought several Succisa pratensis (devil’s bit scabious) at our local Plant Heritage plant sale. Their wispy stems, carrying lemon and violet pearl buttons, fit right in with my planting scheme.
I managed to get behind the apple tree to prune back the ivy, which was spreading over the greenhouse roof. Increased light levels have encouraged the tomatoes and cucumbers to ripen.
Hot, sunny spells and heavy rains caused Salix integra ‘Hakuro-nishiki’ to put on so much leafy growth that it overshadowed the salvias and phlox underneath. David has given it a serious haircut, but we’ll still have to give it a hard prune over winter.
The exotics on the patio loved the hot weather. The flower spikes on the cannas were 2.4m (8ft) tall and the ipomoea and thunbergia escaped the confines of the pergola to flower under our bedroom window. The patio pots have been flowering so prolifically, I’m afraid if I don’t feed them weekly, they’ll burn themselves out. We’ve been enjoying a never-ending supply of plums, apples and runner beans from the allotment, baking, freezing and swapping produce with friends. The vine has heaved with countless bunches of grapes, some picked for drying into raisins, and others left to ripen to harvest this month. We’ve picked dahlias for weeks now and they could be strong contenders for a prize at the local horticultural society autumn flower show. The garden has produced a number of surprises. Ipomoea, which was so slow to get going among the thunbergia, opened its huge blue flowers every morning. Clematis ‘Golden Tiara’ flowered prolifically for the first time. The centre of the garden is dominated by the grassy bed. It includes miscanthus with its bronze tassels, Verbena bonariensis, and Bidens aurea ‘Hannay’s Lemon Drop’. Perfumed phlox, delicate abelia, reliably cheerful rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ – the list of late-flowering perennials just goes on! Giant show-stoppers, Salvia confertiflora and
S. involucrata ensured the summer went out with a bang!
The patio is my favourite part of the garden. I’ve created my vision at last – black and limegreen cannas with orange and yellow flowers, dark-leaved Nonstop Series begonias smothered in bright red, double flowers, tangerine thunbergia, purple salvias and ginger lilies.
With the NGS open garden season nearly at an end, there’s still no time to rest on our laurels. We have to keep the garden looking good for a visit from our local U3A (University of the Third Age) group this month, but it’s good discipline and a great excuse to try out one more new cake recipe!