We Have FLOWERS!!!

[endlessrarities]

A lot can happen in the space of a week. 

I featured a garden post last Sunday, and reported that progress was satisfactory, but that things still hadn't quite kicked off yet. 

While the bedding plants haven't quite started flowering ( the cosmos, snapdragons and anagallis are still quite slow) the herbaceous plants have really come along by leaps and bounds.  The combination of roses and potentilla in the front garden is setting the lobelia and osteospermum off a treat:-

When I first designed this bed, I put in a range of potentillas (pale lemon, yellow/orange, pink and red) and planted the spaces in between with Old English Roses of a similar colour, interspersed with lavender to try and keep the aphids away.  The red potentilla expired first of all, followed by 'Eyelyn', a lovely salmon/apricot David Austin rose, and then all but one of the lavenders bit the dust.  But the basic premise remains the same, and I think it works.  Any spaces in between the roses just get jammed full of bedding plants, with cosmos to the rear, snapdragons and osteospermum in the middle rank, and lobelia at the front.  When J added primula and viola, things went a bit awry, but his additions have also continued to flower and I think the end result complemented the existing scheme even more:-

 

I'm quite fond of sweet peas, but instead of growing them in the normal formal way, I tend to let them ramble through the herbaceous border:-
 

 

This particular sweet pea looks great amongst the blue geranium and wine red scabious.

Lastly, I thought I'd do a special feature on begonias.  Because I like them.  The vine weevils like them too, unfortunately,   But at least most of my begonias have reached an age where they can hold their own against a predator.  They're blousy, they're frou-frou, they're totally in yer face, but I love them!!
 

 

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

wine red scabious T'aint natural!

But looks fabulous... I'm quite tempted.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Evidently the slugs and snails don't think so, either. I've tried the white, I've tried the blue, and they've both been munched into oblivion... Our slimey friends don't bother this one, which is called 'Burgundy Bonnets'. There's a rather fetching white-tipped version, too.

The bees and hover-flies love it, so it can't be that much of a mutant. It's also VERY vigorous...

[clairehawthorn.livejournal.com]

A lot can happen in the space of a week indeed - my garden has suddenly had a growth spurt over the last seven days too!

To my mind sweet peas were meant to ramble freely at will so to see yours galloping along happily is a joy. Yours are much further on than mine (which are contained in a tub much to my shame - must learn to practise what I preach...)

Lavender planted below roses ALWAYS works so I hope you perservere with your planting scheme, although I must admit every lavender I've ever grown in this garden has died leaving me currently lavenderless.
However, at Alnwick Castle the Duchess of Northumberland successfully grows sheets of lavender below numerous roses so it can be achieved in this part of the world.
(With a husband who has a fortune of £400 millon, a team of serfs/gardeners and a spare £50 millon to spend on the aforementioned garden.)

Your beautiful begonias are an example of how begonias should look and make me wish I'd taken your advise and grown some.

As always, your garden is looking absolutely gorgeous!

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I've given up on lavender. Our soil is just too soggy - the poor things rot, when the cold doesn't get them.

For the first couple of years, we had a major problem with aphids, but just recently everything seems to have balanced out nicely and they just aren't a problem. We had a Little Brown bird patrolling one of the miniature roses in the back garden today - don't know if it was a willow warbler or a chiff-chaff, but it was certainly on aphid munching detail!

I got into begonias fairly late in life, but I really love them now!

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

I think it's all lovely! I like the way you're growing the sweet peas- I'll have to give that a try.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I've got some growing up peasticks, but the ones that are rambling seem to be doing better - the standard peastick-grown plants are really not dealing with the torrential summer rains at all well. There's been lots of snapped stalks....

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of letting the sweetpeas ramble.

[roaming.livejournal.com]

oooooooh, colours! very lovely

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

And rainproof flowers, too. :) My geraniums don't like heavy rain that much, though the marguerites and begonia semperflorens are doing just fine, as does the majoran and thyme. I had no idea how huge these things can grow, lol.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Rambling or not, the sweet peas don't like the heavy rain much, either. I've got a few broken stems already. Not that I think it would be much better with pea sticks...

Note to self: invest in a new trellis...

[red-trillium.livejournal.com]

Lovely flowers! I like that yours sweet peas go rambling.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

They don't seem to find this alternative method too objectionable...