... and the flowers

Having reviewed the summer’s vegetable harvest, it’s only fair to consider at least some of the flowers.

Not a bad show this summer, all in all.  I grew very few flowers from seed this year, deliberately cutting back on my usual over-enthusiasm, knowing full well how few I actually manage to do anything with.  There were precisely two varieties sown for planting out, Cosmos ‘Xanthos’, which I like for pots, and lobelia – and the lobelia failed to thrive, so was thrown out.  ‘Xanthos’ has been in the windowbox, where it was only intermittently watered and is looking very sad as a result, and also with Dahlia ‘David Howard’ in a large pot on the patio.  The combination of the soft yellow cosmos and the soft orange dahlia has worked well, although the latter only started flowering in September, by which time the cosmos was very much past its best and the other companion in that pot, lobelia (from the garden centre), was pretty much dead and gone.  It’s the first year that I’ve got ‘David Howard’ to flower properly, and it’s a splendid dahlia, with good dark foliage. 

Dahlia 'David Howard'

The other dahlias are ‘Sam Hopkins’, a nice dark red, and the single-flowered ‘Bishop of Auckland’ (scarlet) and ‘Bishop of Canterbury’ (pink); all a bit late this year, but doing nicely now.  I’ve lost ‘Ambition’, sadly; it was never the strongest grower.  The dahlias are in the new bed in the angle of the patio and the rear terrace, which I carved out of the lawn and which has been covered in cardboard, compost and black plastic for over a year to kill the grass (mostly successfully, although the edges of the bed are still a contested area between the soil and the grass, and need digging out).  The long-term intention is to expand this bed further, but one step at a time ….  The dahlias were put in there as a temporary measure (they will be dug up and stored in the greenhouse for the winter), and once they’ve been lifted I will plant up the bed with more permanent inhabitants.  It will be a good place to plant out some of the cuttings etc that I’ve been keeping in pots, but also I have several plants acquired from village plant sales this year. 

The soil in the new bed is shallow; it’s on top of what I think was intended as a soakaway for the house downpipes, and the base is very stony.  As the terrace and patio are at a slightly higher level, there’s scope to add a lot more compost to bring the soil up to the same height.  Fortunately I have a good quantity of compost from the hotbin, which has been quite successful this year; it was re-started in April, and not emptied until September, by which time nearly all the contents had turned into very reasonable compost which, if slightly rough, is easily good enough to fill the new bed.  The bin then had to be started virtually from scratch (it doesn’t heat up until about a third of the bin is filled), but got going quite quickly and has been steaming away enthusiastically at 50C (120F) for a couple of weeks; the main task now is to keep the contents topped up and the bin cooking everything over the winter.

Behind the patio, the dogwood is going to need cutting back again next spring but, in the meantime, is playing host to the dark purplish-red clematis (it’s either ‘Etoile Violette’ or ‘Royal Velours’, I can never remember) which has clambered out of the undergrowth and is flowering happily on top of the bushes.  It has done very well this year.

Clematis climbing through the dogwood

Although I only sowed the cosmos and lobelia for planting out, I did also sow an old packet of mesembryanthemum seed direct; I wasn’t sure it would germinate, and it was a ‘nothing to lose’ sowing.  It was sown straight into the gravel under the repotted Camellia ‘Ruby Wedding’; it did germinate, but took a long time to do anything more; the first flowers are only showing now.  It’s not hardy, so will disappear with the frosts.

Mesembryanthemum under the camellia

One of the veg plot beds had antirrhinums and foxgloves in it last year, and I left them to self-seed; the foxgloves did well, but the antirrhinums were slow to flower and not good enough for cutting.  I’ll dig them out and sow some fresh seed next year, I think.  The yellow antirrhinum in the greenhouse has continued to flower, even squashed between the tomato growbags and the greenhouse glass; it has probably seeded itself everywhere, so might have created a problem for next year!

The foxglove bed, earlier this year

On the subject of self-sown flowers, our lawn orchids did well again this year; that part of the lawn was left uncut over the summer, and we had over 70 blooms.

Orchids in the lawn

Not so good this year are the nerines; we had a bumper crop last year, and this time – just three.  I have no idea why.

One small success was the survival of the littlest of my hedychiums; the larger ones succumbed to my maltreatment of them, but the baby one has produced a spike of leaves, which promises well for next year (the photo shows it at an earlier stage).  I intend to treat it with more care this time!

Signs of life in the hedychium pot

Also flowering are the ivy bushes that have climbed up the leylandii hedge and are sticking out of the top.  I’ve been trimming the hedge – actually ‘cutting back’ would be a more accurate description as it’s a job that hasn’t been done for at least three years and some serious hacking is required.  I’m leaving the ivy at the moment as the flowers are providing some welcome nectar for bees and butterflies (red admirals), which are flocking to it in search of a meal.