Here are some photos of plants I missed earlier from the old garden and some from the new.
Dahlias
Everybody is familiar with dahlias, so no more needs writing. Probably the camera but the colour of ‘Mel’s Orange Marmalade’ looks decidedly off and ‘Cafe au Lait’ is looking definitely droopy. I used to raise ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ and his children from seed and they were the only dahlias I actually engaged with, dahlias are not really a favourite. My father used to love his dahlias as well as growing giant delphiniums, every year the tubers were lifted carefully, cleaned, dusted with sulphur and stored in the cellar in tomato boxes and every year half of them rotted off. I was hoping that one year everything would be perfect but it never was.
A couple of new Geraniums
‘Ingwersen’s Variety’ was grown from seed last year whilst ‘Galactic’ has been in the garden for a few years now, but I lost the label and have only recently been able to re-identify it by chance.
Canna lilies from tropical America, have been in cultivation for many years and consequently there are many cultivars in a range of vibrant colours available. I grew several in pots for a couple of years but ceased when I decided to no longer have winter heat in my tunnel. Note the use of plastic containers, I had so many that it would have cost a fortune to do otherwise, plus the weight factor when moving them around, although I did buy a sack-truck in later years.
I have no recollection of taking this photograph, although Heptacodium miconioides is certainly a worthy subject. A vigorous tall shrub from China with peeling bark, its scented flowers appear late in the year lasting well into October, which makes it an ideal subject for the woodland garden. There is also the benefit that it sets plenty of seed. Sometimes known as ‘Seven son flower of Zhejiang’
I bought this when T&M were advertising this new ‘Incrediball’ hydrangea and it is still going strong in a very large container in my new garden. Flowers reliably every year although they are not attaining the size that they should which is probably down to me. I am going to hard prune it this winter to see what happens.
The shoo-fly plant or apple of Peru used to be quite widely grown for bedding schemes but seems to have gone out of favour. It is an extremely fast growing large annual rapidly attaining anything from 3 to 6 feet. The purple flowers die leaving a lantern shaped calyx which can be used in dried flower arrangements. It has a habit of appearing out of the blue, which is exactly what the pictured plant did.
A Plantsman's World 