I can never decide if I like Papaver ‘Patty’s Plum’ or not. The color of the flower when it first opens is lovely and I can’t resist the tissue like petals but it does fade to a rather miserable brown as it dies. Having said this my two plants of ‘Patty’s Plum’ are groaning with buds and I am anticipating the best ever show in the next week. There are two because being an oriental poppy when you attempt to move it you can more or less guarantee it will reshoot in the original position from some small element of root you have left behind. Interestingly, the red oriental poppy (name unknown) is always behind with its flowers and there are few obvious buds so far
Some of my alliums are behaving a little strangely this year by growing very tall with smaller flower heads than usual. It seems to be mainly the alliums with flatter flower heads than the globe flower heads such as ‘Purple Sensation’ although they too seem to have smaller flower heads. I can’t find the name of the variety above, its like Allium nigrum but has the pink inner petals so I am pretty sure it isn’t Allium nigrum.
I think this Thalictrum might be the ‘Black Stockings’ admired elsewhere. I am pretty sure these were grown from seeds some years back. It is a nice Thalictrum as it isn’t too tall like some Thalictrums.
The Siberian Irises are also not flowering as much as in previous years and I suspect that they and the alliums have been affected by the drought last year. I do love irises and this has been brought home to me over the last few weeks with all the irises I have included in my Six on Saturday posts. With this in mind I’m off today to a Beardless Iris study day which hopefully will be interesting.
I thought I would show you some of my more extreme pruning. The above is a Viburnum which had been neglected and grown tall and leggy with whippy stems – a victim of my lack of gardening over the last couple of years. A couple of weeks ago I noticed the flowers had gone over so I got my secateurs out and drastically pruned the shrub. It looked awful at the time but I was pleased to see that new leaves have started to appear so hopefully it will be reinvigorated soon.
I also meant to write a blog post last week about my tin bath pond but work got in the way so I am sharing a photo here. I have had the tin bath for a number of years. It was acquired with the intention of creating a pond; it sat on the patio for a year or two but for reasons I can’t remember now didn’t seem to work well so we (well my son) drilled some holes and I used it as a planter for a few more years. Then about 3 years ago I wanted to grow a miniature water-lily, as you do, so we (my son) filled the holes back in and we created another pond. The lily has grown well over the last couple of years but a water lily on its own is not that interesting so last weekend I stopped at a garden center which sells pond plants and bought a few bits and pieces to add interest. I’m hoping it will be more colourful as the summer progresses.
For more Six on Saturday posts check out The Propagator’s blog
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