2025

The welcome rainfall has really boosted everything in the garden, although it is always sad to see the early bloomers finished until next year. My garden is always at its best Mid-April To mid-June. I can now breathe a sigh of relief, as the couple of bamboos that I have, are finally greening up again. I always worry that they aren’t going to recover after their winter battering, because they are so late. I have a Phyllostachys nigra which was badly damaged a couple of years ago, and only partially survived. We are promised another “heatwave” next week. I think it is meant to reach as much as 29°C on one day!

An abundance of geraniums this week. I wanted to get them in before some finish flowering.

I’m sure Rosa ‘Rambling Rector’ is on steroids. This is only its third year since I planted it, but I never thought this would be the result. Some late pruning, to contain it a little, has certainly helped the flower count. On a warm day it fills my tiny garden with scent, so I won’t complain. A drastic prune is now due!

Geranium ‘Galactic’ or to give it the full title Geranium pratense var. pratense f. albiflorum ‘Galactic’, poor thing! It sat in the garden unrecognised, until I found an old label that had been disregarded a few years ago. I am always hesitant when identifying geraniums, as the variations are often very slight. This has led to a growing problem of, plants offered for sale, being wrongly labeled. Best left to the specialists.

Unfortunately the flower is much pinker than shown, as the name implies. Geranium x oxonianum ‘Dusky Rose’ is a new cultivar which I am hoping should flower right through the summer.

Another low growing geranium (6″). Geranium Orkney Cherry is bred by Alan Bremner in the Orkney Islands so it must be hardy.

Geranium Patricia is another cultivar from Alan Bremner and is the result of Geranium endressii x Geranium psilostomen. I know this one will produce flowers through the summer. Geranium ‘Galactic’ however, I will be cutting back in the next couple of weeks, and hoping for a second flush of flowers.

My favourite pink geranium. I have had Geranium × oxonianum ‘Wargrave Pink’ for many years, even before I made the decision to grow more geraniums. This is another one I know will keep flowering right through the summer.

This meme is hosted by Jim Stevens who is to be found with all the details and links to plenty of other blogs to enjoy at Garden Ruminations.

Popular bulbs, corms, rhizomes etc……… the non-fibrous rooted plants. Part 4.

When I first started this blog, having scrapped any that had gone before, it was mainly as a brain exercise, plus, not a little, nostalgia. I came across the Six on Saturday meme run by Jim Stephens at Garden Ruminations and, through that, organically increased my presence on the web. This has prompted me to re-publish some of my old material some of which is updated. These posts are purely about the plants that I have grown and photographed, mainly in my previous garden, unless otherwise stated.

Tulips Part 2.

Another picture post, dealing with the remaining tulips I have grown and also have pictures of.

Double Earlies

Flowering early to mid spring some of these tulips such as T.’Peach Blossom’ have the extra benefit of being scented which, along with the exquisite double flowers really enhances the early part of the year.

Double Lates

**Tulipa ‘Orange Princess’ Paeony flowered.**

Following on from the earlies some of the Late Doubles such as T. ‘Angelique’ are also scented.

Miscellaneous.

**Unusual Lily Flowered Tulipa ‘Virichic’. These are known as Viridiflora Tulips.**

**Late Single Tulipa ‘Queen of the Night’**

**Bit of an oddity, can’t find it listed anymore Tulipa ‘Pirvilla Lady’ a Fringed Tulip.**

The main pests and actually my nemesis are grey squirrels, they take absolute delight in rooting out the bulbs, whether in containers or in the ground. One memorable Christmas Day, I spent some time moving my pots into groups and spreading netting over them. The assault of the squirrel army had begun, eventually this led me to stop growing the Dutch tulips. I later hit upon the idea of putting a piece of heavy metal netting about an inch under the surface of the compost until this in turn was dragged out. I don’t find it worthwhile to keep the bulbs for another year, but use tulips like bedding plants, in the past I have kept the bulbs for replanting, but have found the results to be inconsistent. One advantage of using fresh bulbs each year is that it avoids the diseases to which tulips are prone.

Botanicals

Just a quick footnote regarding the botanicals or specie tulips, these are generally the dwarf spring flowering tulips, usually found in a rock garden setting or container, with which everyone is familiar. I have grown many of these such as Tulips kaufmanniana, greigii, praestans and their hybrids and also Tulipa tarda although I don’t have many pictures.

**Tulipa praestans ‘Fusilier’ with Anemone blanda.**

See more bulbs I have grown on my next post.

Six on Saturday 14/6/2025

The heavy rain seems to have died down and temperatures have risen again. We are promised some thunderstorms in the near future, so we will have to wait and see what is in store for us.

Although escallonias don’t seem to be as popular as they used to be, this one is so aptly named. The dark green, evergreen foliage makes an excellent foil for those plants in front of it.

The common viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) is a native flower, which I first saw in a garden when I was in my early teens. We had neighbours who had returned from India after serving in the British Raj, which we youngsters found fascinating. Charles was a keen amateur astronomer and my father and I spent a few nights with him gazing at the stars. His wife Effie (Euphemia) was a very keen gardener and an archetypical, indomitable Victorian lady who did much to encourage me in the ways of gardening. One of her favourites was viper’s bugloss, which I have grown in her memory ever since. Echium plantagineum, the purple viper’s bugloss, actually comes from warmer climes, but it is flowering from a February cold sowing.

Primula alpicola the moonlight primrose is another little beauty for a damp spot.

This geranium seems to grow in the poorest of conditions providing excellent ground-cover. Definitely a bee magnate!

**Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingwersen’s Variety’**

Grows virtually anywhere, autumn tints to the leaves, aromatic foliage, bee magnate. What more could anyone want?! Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Bevan’s Variety’ is very similar, in fact, to be honest, I can’t tell them apart.

Finally a rose. I am really happy to be able to grow roses here, although I have limited them to the climbers and ramblers. I love ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’, it is the only rose that I managed to grow in my previous, shady, damp garden.

This meme is hosted by Jim Stevens who is to be found with all the details and links to plenty of other blogs to enjoy at Garden Ruminations.

Six on Saturday 7/6/2025

We have had a very wet week, with very little sun. In between showers I have discovered a couple of pests causing damage to foliage. The mullein moth caterpillar has been feasting on a clump of verbascums making large holes in the leaves. I have found that the easiest way of combating them is to simply pick them off and dispose of them. It’s the first time I have come across these, even though I have been growing verbascums for years. Another first is the geranium sawfly. I have always thought of geraniums as being pest-free and I have found no reference to the sawfly in earlier textbooks. The larvae make fairly neat, small, round holes in the leaves, which detract more from the appearance, than the actual health of the plant. Besides an odd one, the culprits had disappeared, although it’s possible to get another attack later in the year. The odd thing is that they attacked one geranium but a different species growing right next to it was left alone. The good news is no lily beetle yet!

Rather magnificent veining of Geranium x magnificum ‘Blue Blood‘ which is a variant of the original cross: G. ibericum x G. platypetalum.

Another of my favourite candelabra primulas. Although this plant was grown from seed last year, overwintered in a container, and only planted out a a month ago it has still produced a reasonably sturdy flower stem. If it had only made a weak attempt to flower I would have removed the stem to allow it to bulk up more.

I have mixed feelings about this rambler. It opens from a really nice tight, typical rosebud. When half- open it till maintains its form. When fully open it becomes a bit of a mess! It might be that the form I have is not as good as it might be, but even though it is also only lightly scented, I am reluctant to part with it.

I can’t resist the colour and texture of herb borage, I even have a photograph on my wall. This plant is flowering from a cold sowing at the end of January.

I have cheated a bit here in order to show the various stages of Viburnum plicatum ‘Kilimanjaro Sunrise’. It opens with the petals suffused quite a dark pink, goes to almost pure white, and then fades to a softer pink as it ages. This is a young plant but the flowers lasted quite well. The flowers of Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Mariesii’, which flowered earlier, were over very quickly. I think it could have been the long dry spell that caused this to happen.

Geranium × oxonianum f. thurstonianum ‘Southcombe Double’ to give it its full title, is one of a massive group of geraniums which are variants of crosses between G. endressii and G. versicolor, that contain many of my favourites. I think that this is a rather pretty little thing.

This meme is hosted by Jim Stevens who is to be found with all the details and links to plenty of other blogs to enjoy at Garden Ruminations.

Popular bulbs, corms, rhizomes etc……… the non-fibrous rooted plants. Part 3. (Updated.)

Tulips Part 1

This is going to be more of a “pretty picture” post which is, after all, what tulips are about. There are two main groups, first the cultivated tulips which, although the original species hailed from the Near East, were developed by the Dutch plant breeders several hundred years ago. This has continued until the present day. Holland is still the tulip capital of the world, the tulip fields visited by thousands every year. Vast resources were put into developing new colours and combinations. This resulted in inflated prices which caused tulips to become almost a form of currency leading to Tulip Mania and the first ever investment crash. The second group in general cultivation are the specie tulips or botanicals which are generally the dwarf, early flowering types seen in most rock gardens and containers. Please remember the pictures, as always, are of plants I have grown and this is by no means a definitive list.

Triumph Tulips

Flowering mid to late spring Triumph tulips are the largest group, and the goblet-shaped flowers are the ones everybody is familiar with. Some gardeners may not like the use of plastic containers from an aesthetical point of view. I had many plants in a variety of containers, so the factors of cost and weight came into consideration. The other factor to take into account is that I am more interested in the plants themselves hence the garden had a semi-wild look at best.

The “Rembrandt” tulips such as T.Washington and Princess Irene are created by careful selective breeding. At the time of Tulip Mania these colourations were caused by viruses, and there were many crazy methods employed to try and induce these effects. The export of virus infected stock was banned many years ago by the Dutch.