Carol's Blogger Bloom Day 15 June

It's the middle of June already. It seems to be a bit of a hiatus in the garden just when we're about to be filmed for Tern Television's  Beechgrove Garden. It will be great advertising for the Open Gardens of Montrose and Hillside on July 3rd. And of course I shall mention it at every opportunity.

Let's have a look. Sometimes there is more in flower than you think.

The Ceanothus "Concha" is still going strong. the most heavenly blue which now also covers the deck below.

Two shrub roses are in full bloom. The first is called" Rhapsody in Blue".  It starts off as more of a pinky purple and fades to more of a purple blue.

The other rose is a new one called "Champagne Moments" It's a warm creamy colour and supposed to be heavily scented. I tried it out on Paul and he thought the scent was so light that it was hardly there.

The delicate shade plant anemone rivularis is still in flower. It has to be admired in two ways. One is looking into the flower at the delicate centre.

The other is to admire the blue flush on the back of the petals. A must have plant in our garden.

The Solanum crispin is  relative of the potato plant and native of Chile and Peru. It grows in a sheltered sunny corner on our back wall. The last one we tried to grow was the less hardy white variety and it didn't seem to cope with the position that we planted it in. A bit of sun and some fleece during the winter and this one is growing away and producing lots of flowers.

When asked what my favourite plant is. I often answer with the following flower that is just coming into bloom. This will be the star of the Beechgrove programme,  The flowers of the Paeony lactiflora "Jan van Leeuwen" don't last long so it must be photographed and admired as often as possible.

 

 

A real splash of colour next with the Schizostylis coccinea. These seem to flower for weeks and the vibrant pinky-red always catches peoples' attention.

Gillenia trifoliata was much in evidence at Gardening Scotland this year and rightly so. This clump forming perennial is also known as "Bowman's Root" which doesn't seem to describe it at all. I'll have to "google" that later unless anyone can enlighten me as to the origins of the name.

Last but not least we have one of the ariseamas also known as "Jack in the Pulpit"  We've had several of these over the years and have lost some due to poor drainage. (memo to self; add more grit when planting). Arisaema sikokianum has been dwarfed by the hostas sieboldina which seems to get bigger every year and covers them up. However Arisaema consanguineum manages to rise above the hostas.

 If you remember the photo of the shade border that I took last month Carol's Blogger Bloom Day you can see how much that border has grown in spite of the lack of rain.

Both cardiocrinums are about to flower and should be out for the Open Garden Day. It's a shame that I had to prop one up with a stake to stop it falling over in the wind like last year!