callmemadam | Entries tagged with geraniums

It’s too windy today (again!) to get a decent photograph but I’ve done my best. Several hardy geraniums have started flowering this month. ‘Brookside’ is one I like so much that I brought some with me from my old garden. It will sprawl in dry weather but is usually a neat plant and no trouble at all. A bonus is that once the first flush of flowers is over you can cut it to the ground, after which tough treatment it will regenerate and give you more flowers in September. More information here. At one time I grew about one hundred different varieties of geranium, so I think I'm in a position now to say which I think are the best.

110615brookside2

What to choose this week, when the garden is burgeoning and the whole countryside greening up? There’s blossom on the single apple tree and aquilegias flowering everywhere. Cow Parsley and bluebells in the hedgerows, Stitchwort, Herb Robert and Speedwell in the wilder parts of my garden. This azalea is ready to burst into its fluorescent glory. I have little vases of Lily of the Valley in the house.

I’ve picked a fairly humble but uncommon plant: Melittis melissophyllum, also known as Bastard Balm. I saw a solitary and rather straggly specimen at the garden centre last year and snapped it up because you hardly ever see it. I was thrilled that it came to life again this spring and made a sturdy little plant. It’s what Christopher Lloyd would have called a rather weedy plant; no structure, no knock ‘em dead flowers but it happens to be exactly the kind of plant I like.

130515melittisplant

( more pretty things )

Wot, no book reports? I am way behind on these. They’re in my head but it’s so hot where the computer lives and I don’t like writing on the laptop, so they’ll have to wait. I really admire Cornflower and other writers who are maintaining their usual high standards.

The only way to shop at the moment is online or very early in the morning, and I’ve done both. I’ve been looking for ages for a summery bag and then the other day found just the thing in my favourite local independent shop. It’s this one, but blue. ‘Fun, funky and fair trade’ is the company slogan. What I like about this bag is its Tardis-like property; it’s much roomier than it looks. I’ve also been buying at Anthropologie again. When I had an email saying there was a further 20% off sale items, I had another look. I bought a jumper plus a top which I’m wearing right now, and I saved an incredible £115.00 on the original prices, which I would never have paid. Win!

At the market I was pleased to get a nice copy of Clare Balding’s My Animals and other Family for a pound. I’ve been wanting to read it and it has the prettiest endpapers! For a mere 50p I bought The Landscape of Love by Sally Beauman. Pristine copy and when I got it home I found it’s signed. A new author to me; anyone read any of her books?

The plant growers have started selling off stock cheaply. Cosmos are doing brilliantly in the garden this year and I bought a pot of five strong plants. They’re intended to fill an unsightly gap and I’ll probably be planting them at about seven tomorrow morning. As all pots were a pound, I also bought an angel geranium in a large pot, because. Plus the usuals. The fridge now reeks of strawberries and melon, which I’ll probably be living off this weekend.

200713marketgeranium

Current Mood: waiting for the cricket

Not my garden but at the garden centre. First the bad news.
Drought. We’ve had hardly a drop of rain for weeks and weeks.
Deer. They’ve eaten all my phlox and sedums. Now I know why there weren’t any in the garden when I moved in.
Crocosmias. Crocosmias! I’ve already paid a man to spend most of a morning digging out the ginormous clump of ginormous crocosmias I hated so much. The damn things are like dragon’s teeth, though: they keep coming up again. Some of the corms are the size of a large baking potato. Grr.
Age. I was out in the garden at 8.15 this morning and when I came back indoors I felt twenty years older.
( better news, picture heavy )

Current Mood: tired

... these beautiful regal pelargoniums. As I keep complaining, I lost my whole collection in the severe winter. An excuse to buy more.

This one is called ‘Chocolate’ and is darker than it looks in the photo. It’s actually pretty much the colour of my ‘Blood Red’ wallflowers.

Current Music: We Could Be Heroes

It’s raining steadily today, which means there will be fewer outside sellers and car booters down at the market but I decide to go anyway; I’ve nothing else to do. First off I see some fine plants for sale and snap up this Pelargonium ‘Cornish Flair’ for £3.50.

As I’m first on the scene I pick the best one, with lots of buds. When this variety was introduced, plants cost about £20.00 each, so I’m pleased. New geranium stowed safely in the car, I make my way inside and buy a new-old basket to replace the ancient one which is becoming a barbed menace to fellow shoppers. The seller says gallantly that he will tell his wife the basket has gone to ‘an equally lovely lady’. He reduces the price, too. ( inside )

Current Mood: sad

Last Friday's edition of Gardeners' World on BBC2 promised a feature on wild and cultivated forms of cranesbills, or hardy geraniums. Unfortunately I switched on just as the item was ending but saw enough to realise that there are still people madly collecting geraniums. I used to do this and at one time had about a hundred varieties but I gave it up. There are still a lot of geraniums in the garden and, shame on me, I've forgotten the names of some of them. Now that I'm planning on moving I'm thinking of which I would never plant again and which I don't want to lose, so read on if you care. ( more geraniums )

The worst of the day's toil is over and it's marginally cooler in the room with the computer than in the room where I could be watching Wimbledon. So the computer wins and I'll put up some more pictures from the garden.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: hot

This morning at a boot sale I bought for ten pence a 1944 edition of Mystery at Witchend illustrated by Gretchen Breary rather than Bertram Prance. The spine is flapping but I'll have to keep it. I have far too many Lone Pine duplicates: I'll keep a really grotty old 1st edition as well as a nice reprint in dustwrapper. I also added another O Douglas to my collection, matching the rest, plus a few more books.

Now I'll go and pot up the scented leaved pelargoniums I bought for 50p each. I love boot sales!

Current Mood: tired

Just a couple of days in the garden and the whole look of it has changed. This is because the aquilegias and hardy geraniums have started flowering. You can click on the pictures for a larger image: I still can't make a cut work, which is very frustrating.

Lovely Columbines. They are frightfully promiscuous and seed everywhere. One of my plans for this year is to go round with a fork digging out any muddy-coloured ones. The Nora Barlow types and the black & whites aren't flowering yet.

Geranium macrorrhizum is one of the most useful plants for dty shade and I have masses of it. The white one is probably the best. The pale pink one here is 'Ingwersen's Variety' and the bright one 'Czakor'.

Geranium phaeum is another great plant for dry shade and I have lots of different ones. This is a favourite: 'Rose Madder'. It's pinker than it looks in the photo.

I'm pleased with this, especially as I won it in a raffle. A few years ago everyone wanted a variegated polemonium, or Jacob's Ladder, called 'Brise d'Anjou'. Blooms of Bressingham made a great deal of money out of it. I don't know anyone who still has this plant, though no doubt some poor National Collection Holder is struggling to keep it going. The plant in the photo is a fairly recent introduction, Polemomium 'Stairway to Heaven'. The foliage is dainty and when it first emerges is tinged with pink. The flowers are a paler blue than the type plant and more bell-shaped. I've put it in a shady and dampish (for me) spot and so far it's looking good.

Every day there is a new flower out. Irises are looking good and there are fat buds on the peonies. It's so exciting! I nearly forgot this wallflower, the perennial sort, which might be 'Jacob's Jacket'. At any one time there are yellow, apricot, pink and mauve flowers all out at once (the colours change, like anything called 'mutabile'). I love it but it's killing the plants it's flopped over so I will have to take cuttings and relocate it.

Current Mood: wet

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Life must be filled up

Entries tagged with geraniums

Flower of the week: Geranium ‘Brookside’

Flower of the week: Melittis melissophyllum ‘Royal Velvet Distinction’

At the market and other shopping

Gardening will be the ruin of me

I had to buy…

At The Market

Cranesbills

July garden

Hunting again

All change

Profile

August 2024

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags