The garden in July
Kari-Astri Davies is persevering with hollyhocks and learning to love privet as summer heats up
IWOULD NOT NORMALLY drag the hose to the copse at the end of the garden, but some plants are looking particularly sad in the July heat. As the water soaks the earth around a tiarella, a wood mouse emerges, slightly damp, taking cover in the bole of a nearby hazel; then back it comes, reappearing with a mouseling. Four times it takes babies to safety in the hazel. When the deluge is judged to have passed, the babies are returned, one by one.
Soaring spires
In high summer last year, the spires of hollyhocks seemed to be everywhere, at least locally, chance-seeded and otherwise.
Single, crepe-petalled Alcea rosea, originally from China, may have been introduced to Europe by Crusaders travelling the silk routes. A long-time cottage garden favourite, Helen Allingham’s watercolours of Surrey cottages often feature hollyhocks, and circa 1900, she painted the posher doubles in garden designer Gertrude Jekyll’s South Border.
Mixed double seeds are still available as Chater’s doubles. Chater was a Victorian nurseryman, based in Saffron Walden, Essex, who set about breeding multi-petalled, pastel coloured, pom-pom hollyhocks. At its peak, his nursery listed 117 named varieties, including ‘Walden Queen’ and ‘Snowball’. Then, in the 1870s, rust, the scourge of hollyhocks, struck: Chater’s stock was decimated, and floral fashion moved on.
With better rust-resistance, pale lemon Alcea rugosa, a Russian native, revived interest in growing hollyhocks. I remember a friend excitedly telling me about a dramatic planting of A. rugosa alongside purple-black A. rosea ‘Nigra’ in the gardens at East Ruston in Norfolk.
I do not have much luck with hollyhocks, but I persevere. I grew Turkish native Alcea pallida, with white-suffused pink flowers, two summers ago and have since discovered self-sown seedlings.
I have grown another Russian native: A. ficifolia ‘Alba’, the Antwerp hollyhock, to flower next year. In the past, I grew hybrid × Alcalthaea suffrutescens ‘Parkallee’, which sprawled everywhere and had to be removed.
Some hollyhocks are listed as perennial; the RHS suggests treating them all as biennials to help contain potential rust problems. Seeds can be sown in autumn or early spring.
Inherited privet
I have an uneasy relationship with privet. Japanese privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, reminds me of hot suburban streets: houses hidden behind scratchy-twigged, dusty-leaved privet hedges, clipped tight or louchely unkempt. The scent of the flowers can be overpowering; not quite pleasant.
We inherited privet planted on the northern edge of the garden; alongside the suckering snowberry, it makes a cheap boundary hedge. The privet are now wispy trees, but, being semi-evergreen, provide some winter cover. I am trying to
“The Summer looks out from her brazen tower, Through the flashing bars of July” Francis Thompson, ‘A Corymbus for Autumn’
impose a modicum of clipped order on their flanks.
As I walk along the boundary path, falling privet blossom rains down on me, and the tiny, cream-flared trumpets carpet the ground. Bees contentedly make much of this bounty, dislodging more as they forage. Speckled Wood butterflies sun themselves on the matt green foliage in the dappling light. Later on, glossy black berries will provide winter food for birds, although they are poisonous to humans.
This spring, I was looking for a loose-limbed, later summer-flowering scented shrub for a new planting in semi-shade and was drawn to L. quihoui, which nursery descriptions beguiled me into purchasing. The panicles of typical privet flowers are said to be particularly long and elegant. If I can get away from the fact that it is a privet, I may come to love it.
Time of contemplation
July is a month of quieter gardening jobs, working mainly in the coolness of the morning or early evening. Tying up and nipping at the continuous new growth tomato plants make in the greenhouse is one such job. My aim is to keep the plants in check and focused on setting and ripening trusses of fruit. Morning greenhouse opening-up duties include brushing the sharp-beaked blossoms with my fingers to aid fertilisation, which is not quite as subtle as visiting insects.
“Loud is the summer’s busy song The smallest breeze can find a tongue, While insects of each tiny size Grow teasing with their melodies”
John Clare, ‘July’