IAVOM ~ Sunshine & Showers

It's certainly been a case of more showers than sunshine of late but the garden is lapping it up after this hot dry summer. In my vase this Monday are a trio of :

• Rudbeckia fulgidia var. dreamii - a reliable late summer flowering perennial which simply just glows summer sunshine even on dull wet days, of which there have been a few just recently. My plant came from the fabulous nursery which is close to our caravan in the Lake District. The nursery Abi and Tom's Garden Plants is going from strength to strength featuring in both last week's episode of 'Gardeners' World' as well as in this September's edition of the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine 'The Garden'. Definitely a must to visit if you ever find yourself in the south of Cumbria. Below is a photo one of the garden spaces in the nursery when we visited in the middle of May this year: 

• A couple of strands of the golden hop - humulus lupus 'Aureus' - it's having a good year but it's not been as rampart as last year probably in response to the drier summer. It's has just come into full hopiness over the last week. 
• A sprig of an old stalwart clematis jouiniana x Praecox' which is an excellent scrambler and a pollinator magnet. 

My vase was a memento from a holiday last year when we stayed just over the English border and visited a small ceramics studio in Coldstream, Scotland. I felt that it would be churlish to leave empty-handed - well that's my excuse 😉

Thanks must go to Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for her excellent hosting throughout the year. Do visit if you haven't already and see what she and other bloggers are filling their vases with this week.

Here another week without much in the way of any gardening tasks being accomplished. As already mentioned there's been a lot of the wet stuff over the last week and the cramping middle finger hasn't gone away. The rain has precipitated a rash of briza maxima seedlings to appear overnight. They will have to wait until they are bigger to get hold of to extract from where they are surplus to requirements. I have however sent my spring bulb order off which is early for me. I still have tulips to order but don't really want to store these for any longer than I have too so will wait a while longer, maybe another couple of weeks or so. I've taken one or two cuttings and hope to do some more as the week goes on as well as sow some hardy annuals with the imminent arrival of September tomorrow. What have you all be in up to in your gardens? I'd love to know.

Almost Wordless Wednesday ~ Still Some Green

 

Lovely to see that there was still some green grass after such a hot summer on yesterday's visit to Abbeywood Gardens in Cheshire 😀

IAVOM ~ "Pardon Me"

"Pardon Me" or words of a similar nature was what I said when I knocked the head of the last remaining flower bud on my newly acquired day lily - hemerocalis "Pardon Me" to give it it's proper name. I had been garden visiting with a friend and also wondering round the nursery at Bluebell Cottage Gardens when my eyes were drawn to this plant. I have bought very few plants this summer mainly because conditions haven't been ideal for planting but couldn't resist this one. Not only is it a beautiful colour it also has an Award Of Garden Merit and it's also supposed to be long-flowering. I had been moving my new plant to give it a good soak in an old washing up bowl when this accident happened and left the bud floating in the water. I got a nice surprise the next morning to see that the bud was still floating and had opened fully so of course I had to find it a more attractive vessel to display it and for it to shine albeit for an extremely short time.

Thanks as always to Cathy over at 'Rambling In the Garden' for inviting us to share our floral pickings each Monday. It's a great way to start the week. 

The good news here is that it has finally cooled down and it's so much more pleasant to be outdoors. We have had some rain. In fact one day last week it even rained for most of the day and having just watched the weather forecast for the week ahead there's more rain in the pipeline. The not so good news is that out of the blue I have been experiencing cramp in my right hand middle finger (I'm right handed) which as well as being painful is most disconcerting as I don't know when it will strike. As a result of this I've been gentle on the aforesaid digit so have done little in the way of gardening as well as trying to limit my keyboard use. The incidences of cramp seem to be gradually lessening so I'm very much hoping that it will soon completely disappear so that I can proceed with various tasks🤞

IAVOM ~ 'In The Pink'

 

In my vase this Monday are :

• Some shy cosmos. These were grown from seed back at the start of April and have made for small bushy plants which don't require any support. There seem to be a good number of flowers to come so I must keep up with deadheading. I can't remember their name and am unable to find the seed packet so I'm hoping to find a label as I would like to grow them again.
• A couple of stems of helichrysum bracteatum 'Silvery Rose' which certainly seem to be appreciating this hot summer. I bought these as small seedlings rather than sow them myself.
• A flower of dahlia 'Night Silence' which was overwintered in a pot in the greenhouse before planting out in late April. I must admit that I have carried on watering it regularly during the summer along with other plants that I've planted this year.

The vase is one of a trio purchased on a garden visit with a friend back in 2023.

Thanks as always to Cathy over at 'Rambling In the Garden' who gives us the opportunity to share our vases at the start of every week. Do visit her and join in if you haven't already. 

After a relatively cool and fresh weekend when it was a joy to be outside the weather has reverted back to very warm and humid so there has been virtually no gardening activity today. I did nip out before breakfast to pot up a couple of lychnis coronaria plants which I've grown from seed and will nip out early this evening to water the tomatoes. The garden is looking very weary but there are signs of some rain in the forecast from tomorrow onwards which is promising 🤞 I've just been reading some most sobering statistics on the Met Office website about July 2026, when parts of the country have had their driest July on record since 1836! 

This has been an absolutely dreadful year for farmers especially in the south and east of the country and my struggles pale in comparison. My thoughts are now turning to ordering spring bulbs and to checking my seed box. I'm determined to sow more hardy annuals later this month and into September to ease the spring workload as well as produce more sturdy plants. There's always next year 😀