Radical action Part 3 Bedknobs and bamboosticks...

It was our wedding anniversary the other day. Not that I remembered .... traditionally it's supposed to be the man who forgets! We been married for 14 years, together for 17 years and known each other for a lot longer.

So I did feel a slight tinge of guilt to be presented with a beautifully wrapped present and card.

It contained a book that's been on my wish list for a while.

And it doesn't disappoint.  I spent all breakfast "Oohing" and 'Aahing"...

Piet Oudolf is a very challenging designer. I don't automatically love everything he does but some of his plant combinations and ideas show such vivid imagination and understanding of plants as part of the wider landscape that I'm overawed by it.

But it did make me think. Instead of my scrappy, "drawn-on-the-back-of-an-envelope" plan, I should do it on the computer and post it here so you could all see it (and my lack of computer app skills).

So here it is. My first attempt...

A  Miscanthus

B  Phormium Alison Blackman

C  Eremurus Robustus

D  Miscanthus sinsensis "Morning Light"

E  Eryngium agavifolium (may get swapped for E giganteum)

F  Achillea "Terracotta"

G  Crocosmia "Emily MacKenzie"

H  Mecanopsis chelidonifolia

I    Euphorbia Rubra

J   Crocosmia "citronella"

K   Euphorbia Griffithi "Dixter" or perhaps some more E rubra

L   Ophiopogon planiscapus

M  Clematis "Petit Faucon"

N   Melianthus Major

And just in case you were wondering, What looks like Fred Astaire's walking stick is my representation of a part of an old iron bedstead that we bought at Steptoes.

As with all plans it will change depending on how it looks and how many plants we have. And my mood at the time. At the moment some of it is wishful thinking...

This is the planting so far. It looks a bit thin and sad but I can imagine how it might look next year.

A view across the border with the Crocosmia "Citronella" in the foreground and miscanthus behind

Crocosmia "Emily Mackenzie", achillea behind and miscanthus and melianthus major in the background.

 Crocosmia "Citronella" to the fore.

Crocosmia "Emily MacKenzie and Clematis "Petit Faucon" flopping over the iron bedstead.

 

 And last but not least is the "Freya Fence" made out of bamboo to keep the dog out of the newly planted border. And so far it's worked....

The Trials and Tribulations of Cyclamen Hederifolium

For the first few years,  cyclamen hederofolium  and cyclamen hederofolium album grew happily away under the old apple tree bulking up and forming groups of pink and white flowers at this time of year.

I say "happily" but every year they were bombarded from above by windfall apples.

And every year the area became infested with a small spreading weed (something like "Mind your own Business) that formed a dense mat which extended out over the whole area and into the strawberry patch. It was so time consuming weeding it again and again.  Not a good use of my or rather his time. The Undergardener gets all the fun jobs!

It was time for a move. We replanted the area with box plants and mulched with slate. And the cyclamen were potted up . Eighteen months later the plants are still in pots.....

It happens a lot at our place, plants get potted up for a host of reasons and are lined up against the kitchen garden wall. So it was with the cyclamen...

Just as well as it transpired that the wee weed had ended up in the pot too. Believe it or not I had not been negligent in cleaning up the plants and weeding it out as much as possible. The weed, however persists and is as we speak (or type) forming a small mat round the plants.

So there will be no cyclamen planting anywhere in this garden for the time being. Imagine if that weed spreads out of control and I (or the undergardener) have to spend many hours on our poor knees weeding it out for time immemorial....

After cleaning up this pot yet again an application of a fresh layer of grit might sort the problem. In the meantime the pots are on a table. At least we can admire them better at that height.

The flowers are exquisitely formed with up-swept petals on arching stems. They are the smaller cousins of the house and bedding plants available in great numbers in garden centres at the moment. They look their best in drifts under trees as they would grow in the wild.

They come in shades of pink, purple and white.

The plant has attractive ivy-shaped, green leaves with pewter coloured patterns. It makes an effective ground cover plant given the right conditions. The tubers or corms can grow up to 24cm in an older plant. 

The seeds are interesting too but you have to get down close to have a look. After fertilization they form in a pod at the end of the flower stem which coils tightly like a spring and rests above the tuber until the seeds are ripe.

For the sharp eyed among you, yes that is a weed on the right of the photo. But this time it's only Bittercress and it can be easily pulled out!

Fabulous Foliage

There's a new meme by Christina starting today about one of my favourite subjects. Foliage!

However I do find it difficult to make choices for a post about foliage.  

Where do I start? Combinations of foliage? Macro photos? Autumn colour? Foliage with beautiful markings? Architectural foliage?

It's a subject with plenty of scope and I take so many photos ..... so lets have a wee wander through some of the foliage in the garden today with the emphasis on colour and form.

Autumn seems to have come early to our garden and the autumn shades are already much in evidence.  Here's a few examples from top left in a clockwise direction: maple, fothergilla, clematis and red stemmed dogwood.

I like the contrast between the upright peeling trunk of the Tibetan cherry, the strappy arching leaves of the phormium and the purple ground cover of the heuchera.

Next the serrated, glaucus leaves of the Honey Bush Melianthus Major. The stripey leaves of a clump miscanthus grass can be glimpsed behind.

Golden oats (stipa gigantea) shimmer in the breeze and combine with the autumn colouring of the red stemmed dogwood.

Here's another dogwood with almost black stems growing beside the the sumac. In spite of it's size the sumac or Rhus has delicate young foliage in shades of pink changing to green as it matures.

Next is the very elegant acer which has fingers of green leaves normally edged with pink. As the seasons change the leaves take on a redder hue. 

At the moment this stunning plant is in a half barrel hidden away behind a sheltering wall with the other acers. There was not enough shelter in the garden for them initially and their foliage got blasted by the winds. We may try this one in the border next year.

Lets finish this gentle meander through the foliage with a look at the smaller leaves of the often forgotten ground cover plants. From top left: Asarum europaeum or wild ginger , Heuchera "Green Spice",Hedera or ivy, Heuchera " Palace Purple".

Please take a look at Christina's Garden Blogger Foliage Day there's lot of wonderful foliage there. You could also look at Pams Foliage Follow Up. 

And why not post your own foliage photos? 

Wordless Wednesday... almost

raindrops soak the earth
but the soul longs for meaning
beyond finite life

                                  Haiku

A Gremlin in the works....

This was going to be a post about our apple harvest. This is a photograph of the early pickings using P's camera.  There is a problem with the zoom but it works well enough.

So this was one of several photos of apples.

Then the new camera arrived. Consign the box brownie, the Panasonic Lumix (with the faulty zoom) and the Canon Ixus to the box marked "waiting for repair" and get out the brand new Nikon D3100.

And here it is...

So do we  have all the bits that we need? 

The camera with zoom lens, a set of filters (see Scott 's helpful post at Rhone Street Gardens) a hood (see Shirley's excellent post about her cameras at Shirl's Garden Watch) a little brush (to clean the lens) and a puffer thing (also for cleaning).  P thought we needed both!

All this was three days ago....

I managed to take some "not bad" photos ie the subject was in focus and then I managed to wipe the lot. It was all too, too easy. To delete that is. Just press the "delete " button more than twice and bobs your uncle or press the wrong button in the menu, reformat the chip and there you go.... literally.


The Nikon is big and heavy after my little Canon Ixus, which fitted in the palm of my hand or slipped it into my pocket on the way out of the door.


It's going to take a while to trawl through the manuals and get used to the Nikon. In the meantime I'm still trying to get my old camera fixed. So please bear with me and we might get some more photos next time...


Getting back to the apples. You'll have to picture the scene. Jars of sticky, spicy chutney lined up in the cupboard, jelly bags suspended over bowls, apple pies with crispy topping, crystal clear jugs of fresh apple juice ready for breakfast. 

Well it may not have looked quite like that but imagination is a wonderful thing!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day September

Today the garden looks windswept and interesting. I took the photos a couple of days ago when the wind was just getting up in case there was nothing left to show on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day .

All in all it wasn't too bad and there's not been much damage to the garden. I think the wind did a body swerve round Montrose. What we had was just a bit blustery. Nothing much by Orkney standards.

As you can see from the photos there's not so much colour (except green)  left. The flowers are mainly at the far end and can't be seen in this view. The bare earth just above the centre is the border we cleared of cornus ready for a bit of replanting (see posts on Radical Ation Part 1 and Part 2) and warm year end colour.

The Schizostylis coccinea is putting on a great show. It has been flowering since June, which is unusual as you would expect to see them at the end of the season.

It gives a late splash of lipstick pink colour that draws the eye as the visitor walks round the final bend in the path.

I have to admit the garden is looking a bit sad now and for that reason most of the photos are macro images so you can't see the decay round about.

The rose "Champagne" has had a second lease of life and is covered with several blooms. Unfortunately the bush is still a bit small and the miscanthus has partially covered it.

The Tricyrtis hirta or toad lily is one of the last bloomers in our garden. It grows in the shaded border and the blooms look quite exotic.

The Centaurea montana or Perennial cornflower have been flowering away in an almost  hidden corner partially obscured by the crambe cordifolia next to it. Now that the crambe  has died back the beautiful blue of the cornflower is more in evidence.

And who would be without the verbena bonariensis? It adds a late touch of colour throughout the garden and acts as a magnate for the few remaining butterflies.

 The heucheras are so varied and of such colour and leaf pattern that it's difficult not to add them to the planting scheme.

A close-up of the  Schizostylis coccinea. I have difficulty remembering the latin name of this flower and I always have to look it up. Unfortuanely I can always remember it's common name!

The solanum crispin continues to grow and flower in spectacular fashion. It won't be long before our winter regime will swing into action .

One of the many self seeded Eryngium that tends to flop on top of other plants. I took the original plants out and passed them onto a gardening friend but they still keep popping up here and there in the garden. An eryngium with a more compact habit might be better suited to the garden.

The last plant to be strutting it's stuff this late in the year is the Actea, cimicifuga simplex” Brunette”. The flower spikes have been standing tall in the border for some time but it's only in the last few days that its buds have burst into full flower.

That's just about everything that's new in our garden this month. Why don't you pop over to Carol's to

see what is flowering in other gardens?

Autumn Reflections

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,


Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;


Conspiring with him how to load and bless


With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;


To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,


And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;


To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells


With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,


Until they think warm days will never cease,


For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                          

                                                                                           

John Keats

Mist and sunlight in Ethie Woods, Angus

Autumn Leaves, Ethie Woods, Angus

Autumn reflections, Capo Woods, Aberdeenshire

Autumn, Ethie Woods, Angus

Drumtochty Forest , near Clatterin Brig, Aberdeenshire

• All these photos were taken in the last two years. I don't know if we'll get such glorious colour this year after all the high winds.

Radical Action Part 2 A Touch of Spice

I think it's about time there was a bit of a change in our garden. I've been admiring the palate of late summer colours in other people's gardens and on their blogs. And I have come to the conclusion that we need to have a crescendo of glorious colour to end the season on a high note.

Nothing too adventurous, you understand, just a bit swing of the colour wheel away from the green/blue/pink which is usually my preference. I was thinking hot colours such as reds, even yellows and a bit of lime green but then I came across this Achillea "Terracotta" It's a bit spicy and I realized that this was the sort of look that we were after. What is so attractive about this flower is that it's more than one colour and gives an overall spicy effect.

Looking closely at these achillea you can see so many soft shades of orange and yellow blending into each other. As the flowers age the fade to a soft yellow.

We'd also been given a couple of stunning crocosmia that are looking for the right spot in the garden. First of all there is Emily MacKenzie which has a very large flower of burnt umber and orange.

Then we have the slightly more subdued but very clear yellow Crocosmia "Citronella" The buds are a deeper custard yellow opening to a clear pale yellow.

I'm in two minds about dividing the crocosmia before putting them into the border. This is usually what I do in the spring but it may be more of a risky strategy at this time of year as the weather may turn before the plants have time to recover.

I was hoping to combine the new planting with Smoke Bush Cotinus "Grace"  but I'm slightly concerned about the size it will grow to in a short time.

 

Grasses catching the late summer sun and setting off the warm tones of flowering crocosmias and achillea sounds like a "must have" combintion.

Grasses including a stipa gigantea and some smaller ones that I grew from seed, including hardeum jubateum, (foxtail barley) will find a place in the planting plan.

We have a unusual Mecanopsis that came from Cluny House gardens. It has a wonderful arching habit and clear yellow flowers. Perhaps we'll also add some blue or purple in the shape of a clematis and some salvia.

Doesn't the rustic plant support do a great job in allowing the mecanopsis to tumble over without appearing too obvious! That may be an idea to borrow.

The melianthus major will have a important place in the planting. Perhaps it will be moved to a position nearer the path so we can admire the foliage better. I never tire of it's serrated foliage and it's glacous appearance. It's worth all the mulching and care during the winter.

Last but not least (at up to 8ft tall) we have eremurus bulbs, also known as the foxtail lily. They were bought in a weak moment ( I have quite a few of these) at the Dundee Food and Flower Festival. I know they have a reputation for being fussy and difficult to please but we did have some success with the yellow one in our last garden. Their native habitat is the arid desert and that means that getting them to flower in Orkney must have had a large element of luck involved.

Eemurus should flower in early summer before many of the other plants are in bloom. They like light soil and full sun. Last time we grew them I found it difficult to avoid breaking their brittle roots. Perhaps this time I will remember to mark them each with a cane. We have two Eremurus robustus and Eremurus Himalaicus.

So that is the proposed planting. It will proably change along the way, or I'll get cold feet and revert to type (The blue/purple part of the colour wheel).

The rain is on for now and we are expecting the tail end of Hurricane Katia (what a treat) so planting may have to wait several days while we batten down the hatches

Radical Action. Part 1

This started out as very much "a tongue-in-cheek" title. I have been known to snip away at overgrown shrubs in a very desultory fashion. And it really only happens if another plant is being squashed out of existence or I can't get up the path.

P however is much more rigorous in his approach. On one occasion cutting back an old elder (much to my horror) with a large saw. It survived....

Some of the plants have outgrown their space and are crowding out other plants. The cornus are a case in point. We originally planted them to provide structure in each border and to give some colour in the winter months. Even although they are all cornus they have very different growing habits.

Cornus Kesselringii with the black stems has a very upright habit and has not crowded out it's neighbours (yet). Although it might be the rhus typhina on the right of the photograph that is the bully and needs a bit of pruning.

Cornus Flaviramea with the lime green stems has grown in all directions. It had been severely pruned back last year and has grown like the clappers again. So once again it is crowding out my favourite red tree peony. Something has to give. In this case one of the three Cornus will have to go.

Cornus Alba sibirica with the red stems has also spread dramatically. The planting space next to it has shrunk and needs to be cleared of some of the self seeded astrantia and the planting scheme given a new lease of life.

 As well as taking some plants out of each group, the remaining  cornus will be pruned to encourage new growth and colour for next year. In fact we might be a bit more brutal with the secateurs this year. About a third of the shrub should be pruned hard in March. But as you know I'm a bit on the tentative side when it comes to pruning...

Each group of cornus has a clematis twining through it. The idea being that the clematis gets the shade it likes for it's roots but has its flowers in the sun. Lets be honest cornus are not fabulously interesting after the winter but its an ideal backdrop for the clematis flowers.

 I should say we also have two other cornus. Cornus candensis which is a totally different kettle of fish as it is in fact ground cover and Cornus Kousa which is grown for it's beautiful white bracts.

Sometimes gardening doesn't turn out the way we plan.

By the end of the afternoon one group of cornus had completely gone. The had taken over a large area of the border. The main stems (!) were more of a trunk and as big as my wrist. The roots spread everywhere and took all the moisture and goodness out of an already dry, sandy soil. So "Radical Action" was called for. The title turned out to be very apt indeed.

You can see just how dry and sandy the soil is from the photograph. Masses of home made compost will be dug in before any planting is done. The last few barrow loads just seemed to disappear. Give me lovely Orkney soil any day...

You can see the melianthus major , the hydrangea and the angelica growing up towards the light after being squashed between the cornus and the ever increasing bamboo. Some of the bamboo will be removed and given to friends. 
Sometimes it pays to look behind plants and see what is happening. I hadn't noticed how far the bamboo had encroached or the number of annual weeds hidden along the back wall.

The melanthus and the hydragea can be rehomed. Alas, poor angelica "Ebony" cannnot be moved. It has a large tap root and is also tends to be a biennial and hopefully is setting seed.


So there we are. A bit of space. The fun bit is picking some plants to fill it!


It's raining now and my enthusiasm has been dampened somewhat. The rest of the weeding and soil improvement (not to mention the planting) will have to keep for a dry spell.

To be continued in Part 2.....