Flower fest

More pretties for Sarah’s delectation.   The asters in the lilac garden are blooming like mad.   And if I remember to dead head the old flowers, they keep on going.

My success of the year has to be the verbena bonariensis. Again.   What tough old plants. Grown from seed, abandoned during the drought, growing tall and strong.

They never need to dead head or stake.   I have put lots in the strawberry bed and will keep building up my supplies every year.   Must remember to collect the seed.   And transplant the ones that have seeded on the paths, or are in the middle of the carrot row.

And they seem to thrive on neglect.   This morning I have promised my garden that I will water lavishly.   This lower potager is full of flowers right now and they aren’t getting much love. I’m too busy climbing in among the leaves and harvesting enormous courgettes or picking basil, endless runner beans, and even salad.

The flowers just get a cursory dead head if I’m walking past.

And now the sunflowers are having their second flush, so that’s great news.   They don’t do very well in vases, so I just leave them in the ground to give a bit of height to the garden.   And make the birds happy.

I woke up absurdly early this morning, goodness knows why. I am supposed to be on holidays this week.   But I thought it might be a good idea to nip out and try and take as many pictures of the flowers in the garden as possible.

The gaura is billowing in the calabert garden. It’s impossible to photograph as you just get a sheet of white in the middle of the shot. But the flowers are actually white and pink and perfect.   I’m going to move them down closer to the pool garden this winter.   They are too tall and fluffy where they are.   When it rains (well, once this month, but you get the idea) they drip all over you as you brush past.

And my other wonder flower and surprise this year is the agastache up at the potting shed bank.   This is the wonder of gardening. You get to see the evolution of your plants.

I bought a packet of this agastache liquorice blue from Chiltern Seeds four years ago. I had seen it in a photograph of a lush English herbaceous border.   My ignorance was tremendous: it needs moist soil.

But I sowed it back in the old potting shed and it germinated quite well. I carefully pricked out the little plants as they marked the first batch ever of pretty flowers for the garden.   Where to put it? I had visions of a cutting garden of elegant plants that would do for the house.   So I planted it in the area in front of the old potting shed where there were other bulbs and a nascent flower collection. It starved. It was parched, but it grew.

The only annoying thing was the foliage looks like stinging nettles, so it wasn’t madly inviting at the front of the border. And it did tend to droop between showers of rain or infrequent waterings.

When I was rebuilding the shed, I moved it to a temporary position up on the bank. It wasn’t the right spot, but I had planned for it to be only a temporary heeling in of some plants that needed a real home.   They suvived a cold winter but when spring came I thought they were a bit in the shade from the oak tree above.

I was actually planning to dig up the new growing clump and give it to Leslie as her garden gets more moisture than mine.

But I forgot.   All July the plants sulked. Not enough water, not enough soil and I was sure there was too much shade.

But mid August and look at the plants now.   A fantastic survivor. I will take all the seeds, sow them all, give lots of Leslie, and increase my stock.

It was she who suggested I defluff my echinops flowers. These wonderful drumsticks were looking very faded and sorry.   But a quick rub (carefully) and they look blue again.   The butterflies love them. A perfect perching point for the rest of the garden.

And just to show it’s not all mauves and blues: my heleniums are having a second flush in the courtyard.

Almost as clashing as my sunflowers. I had a little companion during my very lavish morning’s watering. He managed to stay just out of range of the hose.   But every now and then he would stalk towards me for a chat.

He managed to climb all over the pumpkin patch, ignoring the sensible path he could have walked around. I didn’t have the heart to scold him. After all it almost feels like love and affection. Or cupboard love.