sweet peas

The stars in this week’s sun-baked garden have surely been the sweet peas. This when you might expect the heat to quickly wilt their delicate petals. No so. Over the past week I’ve cut one and two bunches a day. The house smells delicious. And yet back in the spring I’d been complaining about pigeons chomping all the main stems. The rotters were using the obelisk struts as convenient take-away perches. But it hasn’t mattered, and I haven’t even bothered to water them. But I did plant them out quite early in March, and I can only conclude they made some very strong, deep roots.

The latest rose to bloom is St. Cecilia, a repeat flowering David Austin small shrub creation with hints of myrrh fragrance. She’s growing on top of the back garden wall, where we have a wing canopy tethered, (between the wall and the kitchen double doors). We’ve been enjoying the soothing rose scent while eating outside.

The heat certainly didn’t suit some flowers. The blue geraniums began fading fast and the starry petalled astrantia soon turned crispy. This called for some general tidying. And while I was deadheading around verbascum Lavender Lass I found this…

…a mullein moth caterpillar. I’ve known them wreak havoc in verbascum chaixii Wedding Candles, and also in the tall wild flower mullein, so I was pleased to see it hadn’t eaten too much of Lavender Lass. She should flower again later this year. The caterpillar, though, is the most spectacular beastie, especially when I find it turns into something resembling a piece of crumpled bark.

The front garden has been surviving hours of full-on sun for over a week now, so I’ve been very glad of all the Strulch mulching that I did last autumn. I’ve only had to water a few newly planted out annuals and also the two small raised beds with the dwarf crab apple trees in them. Two plants that have otherwise been coming into their own with no attention from me are: Achillea Moonglow and Oregano Kent Beauty.

The oregano is trailing from the raised bed to the left of the Achillea (above). I also have some cascading over the ugly front wall where it keeps company with the recumbent rosemary. It’s thanks to Jude at Cornwall in Colours that I learned of its existence, and then to discover that there are other lovely ornamental oreganos. It will keep flowering now into autumn, the colours growing more vivid through the season. And of course, it’s also appealing to insects.

And finally, ‘hot from the press’ and opening just this morning, a very striking lily. I can’t remember what she’s called. She was anyway an on-line purchasing mistake late last summer, the plant seller getting their orders confused. When this was pointed out, he told me to keep the bulbs and plant them. I have to say, I wasn’t altogether thrilled. I’m not very keen on lilies. And I’m certainly not keen on the lily beetles that too often come with them. So I put them in pot and forgot them.

Which just goes to show. I shouldn’t have been so mean-spirited about an unexpected gift, even if I did find a nasty red beetle on it yesterday.

Happy gardening, folks, however it comes!

Six on Saturday Please hop over to Jim’s garden and see what’s happening there.

The evening garden

This gardener is beginning to panic. After weeks of rainlessness, we’re now having a spike in temperatures – the peak today at 29 or 30 degrees, depending which weather forecast you consult. Thereafter, hopefully, we should feel a decline of several degrees, with finally a promise of rain next week.

But then we’ve had these promises several times over the last three months, with only one good downpour that yielded 8 watering cans’ worth from the shed water butt. And that was ages ago.

1. Hand watering is all very well, but it really only keeps plants ticking over. Or in the case of my onions and first sown carrots doesn’t. I pulled them up yesterday. They had simply stopped growing.

2. Also my single seed potato in a bucket had had enough by yesterday. This was one I couldn’t fit into my planting row, so I thought I’d trial it in a container. Stopping it from drying out was of course an issue. And the bucket itself was making it very hot. All the same, when I emptied it, I was quite impressed with this little haul.

The Rooster spuds in the ground are still holding their own for now, so I’m hoping for a reasonable harvest. We’ve eaten most of the Belle de Fontenay, and I’ve popped in a few peas where she’s left some space.

3. In the bean corner things are looking fairly hopeful. Beans respond well to mulching, and anyway make some of their own shade. I’d also prepared a compost filled trench for the runners in the winter. The dwarf borlotti beans, planted out in front, are also sheltering the runners’ roots. They don’t seem to mind being hot and are already forming pods. A slight error in labelling has resulted in some of the dwarf borlotti in the row requiring sticks, which is annoying. I have the taller variety growing up some trellis against next door’s garage – i.e. in the once horridly hypericum infested wall-bed on our boundary.

This year I have a real mix of runner bean varieties. For some reason I had problems getting any of my seeds to germinate well, new and not so new packets alike. I ended up re-sowing, and putting in a few Scarlet Emperor seedlings bought from the butcher’s to be going on with. My small row thus also has some white Moonlight, red Lady Di and one Painted Lady which has very pretty white and red flowers although they’re looking pink at the moment.

4. In the nonedible quarters, Penelope rose is still blooming hard, although the other roses have given up flowering now. I love her. She is like a wild rose, but with added flounces. And she smells delicious.

5. Also my favourite Morning Glories have begun to live up to their name and are putting on an early-day show. I’ve planted them out everywhere where there’s something to climb up, amongst the beans and sunflowers, up the trellis disguising the oil tank. Hopefully, if it does rain next week, they will really get going, and hopefully, too, keep flowering until the first frost as they did last year.

6. And another success has been the sweet peas. Although the ones in the front garden are now beginning to fry round the edges, this despite the watering and mulching. Also, given my non-orderly manner of cultivation – randomly up an obelisk and a trellis, they have grown rather short stems. My dear Pa would have been aghast. He used to grow his in regimented tall-cane rows, with set watering intervals to ensure evenly spaced blooms along each dead straight stem. Then he would lovingly count them, five and six big flower heads, usually. And then he would snip a bunch of the best and take them off to his latest lady friend. Mother rarely got a look in when it came to sweet peas.

I’ve tried taking a photo of ours outside, but they don’t look their best. So here’s one of the several small vases we have about the house. Wall-to-wall sweet pea scent, a soothing antidote to moments of over-heatedness.

Six On Saturday Please visit our host Jim. Lots of interesting plants in his garden today.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge

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