Thursday 15 September 2011

GBBD (15 SEP 2011)

Today is Garden Blogger's Bloom Day at MayDreamsGardens.
Please visit Carol's site to see what's flowering in gardens around the world today.

In my last post I was moaning about the recent bad weather, but the sun has been shining for the past couple of days  ...

The asters are survivors from the first set of seedlings sown this spring. The other plants below were grown from late sown mixed "cottage garden annual" seeds. The names of the plants weren't listed on the packet, but it turns out that they don't match the picture anyway. Delighted with them all, big and small.





Self-seeded lime-green nicotiana and cosmos, the children of Mrs. F's plants given to me last year. I'm going to spread their seeds all over the garden to ensure that I don't have empty flower-beds again next summer.



Oregano and strawberry plants from my neighour. The strawberries have already fruited twice this summer; their timing must have confused the pests that usually spoil them. I've eaten more home-grown strawberries this year than ever before.



These are inherited fuschias which I have split and replanted. I've seen tree fuschias in other people's gardens; I'm not sure if they are a special hardy variety or if it's possible to turn herbaceous fuschias like mine into trees. 



Apparently buttercups and anemones are in the same family. I love buttercups but I have a love/hate relationship with the anemone because it grows suckers under and between the patio slabs. I've seen it growing wildly in neglected gardens, clump after clump. In keeping with the spirit of this, I leave its portion of the garden to grow wild with grasses, bindweed and all.

              


The pink flowers on the left grow all over the garden uncontrollably. They can't be pulled out completely because their rhizomes are nodular, snapping off when tugged. I weed them out as I go along, but I don't mind when they return. Sedums can do no wrong; in my (short) experience, they are the best behaved perennial.



A gladiolus blown over in a wind-swept flower-bed, yet still blooming while recumbent on a bed of houttuyia.


©Copyright 2011 b-a-g. All rights reserved. Content created by b-a-g for http://experiments-with-plants.blogspot.com/2011/09/gbbd-15-sep-2011.html


21 comments:

Sunray Gardens said...

You do have a nice variety of blooms. That lime green flower is pretty and interesting.
Cher Sunray Gardens

scottweberpdx said...

Great post...love them all...especially the Cosmos...one of my absolute faves, bar none!

Liza said...

Pretty blooms! Quite different from what I can grow in the desert.

RBell said...

Lots of splashes of color in your garden. Fuschias always have such wonderfully exotic flowers. Happy GBBD.

One said...

The ones I like best in your garden are the blown over Gladiolus and the Fuschias. Just gorgeous!

Andrea said...

You have lovely blooms there, but most of them cannot grow here except the gladiolus, cosmos and fuschia. I love that variegated vine on the last photo looking like sweet potato.

HolleyGarden said...

I see those little seed packets, but have never tried them. Yours are so pretty, I think I just might give it a go next year! Love your fuschias, too. And I agree - sedums are wonderful! Happy GBBD!

Anonymous said...

Hi BAG! I see you are doing well, aren't you? I like you sunflower, very rare color!
Is the nicotiana scented as others variety? I'm in love with green flowers...

Karin / Southern Meadows said...

I love sedum too! They are such great plants. So glad that you have been enjoying many homegrown strawberries. They are so tasty! Your blooms are spectacular too. Glad you got some sunshine. Send some rain over this way please!

Anonymous said...

Really nice selection of blooms that you grew from seed, big and your nicotiana and cosmos, but neither self-seeded for me, which is OK since sweet alyssum re-seeds like crazy. I had the lime green last year too. Happy GBBD.

b-a-g said...

Thanks Cher, Nicotiana Lime-Green is very easy to grow. One tiny seed produces a whole clump of flowers, as in the photo.

Thanks & Welcome Scott - Last year the cosmos plants grew big & bushy and flowered quite late. This year it was the opposite.

Thanks Liza - It seems that we can both grow morning glories in our climates. I didn't plant my morning glory seeds this year (I was cautious after the garden was attacked by bind weed which is realted). Yours are beautful.

Thanks RBell - Glad you like the fuschias. Its amazing how the flimsy stems can support the flowers.

One - I have a soft spot for the fallen gladiolus too. I thought about supporting it vertically with a cane, but it seems happy where it is.

b-a-g said...

Thanks Andrea - The vine is houttuyia, it's sold as ground-cover. I inherited it, so I have to manage it, but I don't recommend anyone to plant it in their garden without researching it properly first. It has a bad reputation for being invasive.

Thanks Holley - According to the seed packet, you just sow them onto a prepared flower-bed, rake over and water in. However I didn't notice any of the outdoor-sown seeds growing. The ones shown here were germinated in seed-trays in my kitchen.

Alberto - I thought I was doing well until I checked out your blog! I've never seen a back-garden planted in that style - it's spectacular.
The lime-green nicotiana is scented. The colour changes, I like it best when it starts to flower.

Thanks Karin - I shouldn't have complained about the rain. We had two days of sun-shine and the plants have started wilting already.

Thanks Donna - The ideal would be to have a garden which just self-seeds itself. It might take a few years to find the plants that the garden likes.

Alistair said...

Great plants b-a-g,the Asters were amongst the very first annuals which we grew from seed in 1969 wow that was a long time ago. I am also very fond of your white Anemone, behaves itself in the cooler north.

Helen/patientgardener said...

Lovely flowers. I can't grow Nicotiana at all, the seedlings fail every year. I think you can train herbaceous fuschias into standards with a little patience and effort

Masha said...

There is certainly nothing to moan about in your lovely garden. I love your fluffy aster blooms. They are all beautiful, even the horizontal gladiolus :)

Linnie W said...

I too grew asters for the first time this year-- wonderful to have the late flowers. I think I will grow them again next spring. I know what you mean about anemones, they are very pushy, but worth having around I think, so pretty. Good job with strawberries, I have never have success with them!

b-a-g said...

Thanks Alistair - I don't think you would love the anemone if you saw what it's doing to the patio. On the positive side, I do like the way the white flowers rise up above the bush and bob about in the breeze.

Thanks Helen - Sorry to hear nicotiana doesn't grow for you. I think my self-seeded ones germinated because we have had so much wet weather.

Thanks Masha - I was lucky that the three asters which survived were three different colours.

Thanks Linnie - Yes the anemone is worth having around, it's been flowering for three months. Hacking at the roots provides valuable stress-relief if I'm having a bad day.

Masha said...

I enjoyed looking through your pictures again. I envy your asters especially, I don't think those grow well here... I wanted to answer the question about the prickliness of singles vs. HTs you asked on my blog here because I think you raised a very interesting issue.

I think the original Tea roses are generally not so prickly, and the prickliness of HTs comes from the Hybrid Perpetual side of their genes. I do know of a few HTs that are nearly thornless, but not many. Generally I would say that HTs are well endowed with prickles. Singles and semi-doubles on the other hand encompass a much wider variety of genetic backgrounds, so logically I would expect to find more lightly prickled or thornless varieties there just due to the vastness of the gene pool. Some species are very prickly (and some, like r. sericea pteracantha, have very interesting and beautiful prickles which actually are their main attraction). Rugosas are so prickly I hesitate to come close to some of them (lots of rugosas are single and semi-double). My Secret Garden Musk Climber is scary too. Thank you for making me think about this, it would be a very interesting subject to research.

Malar said...

Pretty Blooms! Most of the flowers looks new to me!

b-a-g said...

Masha - Thanks for the detailed response. I don't know much about roses, I just observe those in my garden. I bought an "old english rose" that was on the sick plants shelf at a diy store last year. It has bristles rather than thorns over the entire stem. I also have a wild rose with hardly any thorns. That's what raised the question.

Thanks Malar - Some of them look new to me too!

debsgarden said...

Wow, I really like the green necotiana! Self sowers can be a bane or a blessing. I have the pink oxalis (shown in the photo following the buttercup and anemone) growing in my woodland garden, and I want it to spread, spread, spread!

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