The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Signs of summer
Spring’s blooms have faded for another year but the stars of summertime are waiting in the wings for their moment to shine
Every flower has its season so provided you grow a wide variety of plants the garden can be full of colour all year round.
For now, the spring bulbs are a distant memory, as are the oriental poppies and bearded iris which followed them.
Some azaleas and rhododendrons are still in flower but it is the roses that are stealing the show in June.
The long dry spell brought on some mildew then the arrival of the rain gave the greenfly a boost but they were sprayed with a combined insecticide and fungicide to clean them up.
To keep them looking their best, I’ll be removing all spent flowers to prevent them wasting energy on producing rose hips.
Oriental poppies also need their seed pods removed. Take away the old foliage too and in a good year they might regrow with fresh leaves and produce a second burst of flowers.
The peonies have put on a good display but now the show is over it’s time to cut back the old flower heads.
Garden pinks are becoming very popular and are hard to beat for that wonderful clove scent.
They don’t need rich soil but it must be well drained and they flower best in a sunny position.
Mine all suffered a plague of minute black aphids which just about destroyed all of the foliage but again, a quick spray of insecticide soon sorted them out
Peonies have given a good display but now the show is over it’s time to cut back the old flower heads
and they are now well on the road to recovery.
The greenfly on my oriental lilies also got a spray well ahead of flowering so now we are eagerly awaiting the first huge scented blooms coming into flower.
Dahlias, chrysanthemums and gladioli, grown both for display and cut flowers, are all flourishing but it will be a few weeks before they really make an impact.
The chrysanthemums are supported with stakes and wires and the plants have had the tops pinched out to encourage branching. There’s no need to do this with the spray types incidentally, since they branch naturally.
Some of the dahlias have started to flower but they are in need of more sunshine after this wet spell has dragged on for longer than they would have preferred.
My hardy fuchsia Mrs Popple survived well over the winter, aided by the mild conditions, but for some reason most of the top woody growth has died back.
For the sake of appearances I’ve
removed the dead wood and the old stems have produced masses of new shoots.
Once they burst into growth they can move fast so there are plenty of flowers now and they should continue to bloom until late autumn.
The Senecio greyii has started to produce its yellow flowers, which can be quite striking against the silvery grey foliage, and here the display is enhanced by a drift of pink Erigeron in flower around the bush.
I confess this planting arrangement was a happy accident. I needed a bush for a spare patch of land on a dry, sunny bank, the Senecio fitted the bill and everything just fell into place nicely.
Coming back to ground level, my succulent Delosperma nubigenum may only grow an inch tall but it is a great ground cover plant which smothers all weeds and in May it produces a mass of yellow, scented daisy flowers.
The other Delosperma cooperi has purple flowers and grows two inches high and like its companion it is perfect for growing in the cracks of walls.
Push a few shoots in a crevice and just leave them; it really is that simple and they will soon root and grow quite happily without any soil.
Bare soil patches remaining after the removal of spent tulip leaves have been sown with calendula, candytuft, larkspur and other fast growing annuals to give a bit of colour later in the season.
Tubs and hanging baskets have done well with the warm, wet weather but as they have a limited amount of soil feeding will be carried out at least once a month.