August garden round up

Posted Thu 31 August 2017 in garden

Weather

Pretty poor weather for most of the month, two very wet days at the beginning of the month with large pools of water gathered across the graveled area at the back of the house. There were also a number of times when it was blow-over-the-lavender windy.

In the last week it has been mostly dry and there is not much sign of rain on the forecast for the next couple of weeks.

Its hard for me to say what effect these long rainy spells followed by long dry spells are having on the new plants. Some are certainly not thriving, but maybe they wouldn't have done anyway.

Flowering

So lets get on to what is flowering. This is roughly in date order, but only roughly.

• Lobelia 'Starship Scarlet'. Been in flower for most of the month and I like it a lot.

  

• Gaillardia

• Clematis - I don't know the species - it is growing through the Pyracantha and has put on a good show.

• Catmint - Nepeta 'Purrsian blue' For a while this was flowering well and attracted many a bee. It survived for a week or so, then one day, every stem bar one had been removed and placed in a neat pile at the edge of the lawn

  I'm not blaming the chap in the picture, although he did like to nibble on a stem he showed no inclination towards wholesale destruction of the plant

  

• Mallow - maybe, I don't know - the flower just appeared one day, I hadn't noticed it growing. Just the one flower, but pretty in a photo.

  

• Eryngium. There are a good many flowers, shame the stems are not self supporting. Even through it has been flowering all month there is another flower stem developing now.

  It's been featured before, but I can't resist another photo of a bee. Or two.

  

• Lavender

  

• Zinnia

• Salvia 'Wendy's wish'

  

• Physostegia

• Purple loosestrife two patches of this, both with plenty of flowers considering it's the first year for them here.

  

• Rudbekia. The flowers are all a bit eaten around the edges, but more flowers to come, so this may not be its best for the year.

  

• Potentilla

• Hebe. I'd almost forgotten this was there as I cut it right back and it is overshadowed by other things. There were a few flowers that didn't last long.

  

• Himalayan honeysuckle, still flowering at the tips of the flower structures, with berries higher up.

• Geum 'Totally tangerine'. This stopped flowering for a while and I though it must be done for the year and I would have been happy at that. However there is a new batch of flowers as plentiful as the first batch.

  

• Mint. I don't know what kind. The whole of the border end where the perenial Lobelias are now was covered with mint, all of which I removed. This one has survied and flowered.

  

• Verbena bonariensis. I'm not a big fan of this, particularly where it is. I'll try to encourage it to move further back where it may fit better.

  

• Japanese Anemone 'Honorine Jobert'. Who would have thought it. I planted this, many of the leaves quickly died off and I wondered if it would survive. It remains a very small plant, but here we have at least one flower.

  

• Gazania. There was one flower mid month and a few at the end which I didn't manage to catch before they closed for the night.

Bought

Only one plant bought this month which is Polemonium caeruleum 'Brise D'Anjou' The RHS website says that it is grown for its foliage and the flowers are best removed. That will not be happening.

Cuttings

I am going to try to create some more rosemary and lavender bushes from cuttings and also make some backups of the less hardy Salvias in case they don't get through the winter.

So far one of the rosemary cuttings is doing well and I will probably make a post on it. The others have not rooted yet.

Posted by Steve