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GARDEN 31 |
A miscellany cont...
I have always liked violas and their cheeky "faces". This one is just a lucky seedling that has a rich velvet sheen to it when grown in full sun.
A beautiful, selected, thrift seedling.
(L) Double flowered, Geranium pratense caeruleum flowers for nearly two months. (R) The flowers of another double, Geranium pratense plenum violaceum look like miniature blue roses.
Three of my favourite campanulas: (L) Campanula Persicifolia "White Cup and Saucer". A strong grower despite it's elegant appearance. (C) The double," Pride of Exmouth" (R) Another double, "Wortham Belle". I bought it in a dyslexic moment thinking it was Wrotham Belle and named after a village in Kent.
The garden is constantly changing, either by accident or design. No two years are ever quite the same. Hours of winter planning can come to nought following a single night's frost, flooding, or the baking heat of summer. I rely heavily on the use of annuals which are usually sown intentionally, directly into open ground or they are allowed to set seed freely. I am always a little peeved that annuals like cornflowers seem to only come in mixed packets. Although this makes for an exciting time in the spring as buds start to open, it causes disappointment when invariably the pink ones come up with a pink rose instead of a white, and white ones come up in the middle of a white geranium for example. To prevent this happening too often, I now collect most of my own seed to give me more control over the planting effect I want to achieve.
( L) This erigeron karvinskianos seeds into any crack. Sadly, it steadfastly refuses to climb up the walls (where I would prefer it to go) and prefers to invade the brick paving instead. (R) Erinus alpinus or "Summer starwort" is another plant I am trying to get to grow in cracks in the wall. It too, steadfastly refuses to leave the paths and grow upwards.
One of the problems of trying to be organic, is dealing with weeds. The bottom borders, including the rose beds, are full of ground elder and bindweed. There is nothing else for it, but to get in and hand dig as much of the roots as possible, whilst at the same time, preventing the bits you can't get out from self-seeding. The paths are all of brick, laid on a base of sand and they too, have to be weeded by hand. This is a pleasure more than a pain, as for the last 15 years I have been allowing the highly scented, Corsican mint (mentha requenii), to fill every crack. Daisies, by consensus, are allowed in the lawns but coping with the encroachment of celandine from the orchard is proving a headache.