A quick look around the garden with more plants beginning to flower this month as the temperature climbs.

1. Another blue hardy geranium and one which I bought myself last year from Burncoose nursery. I have of course lost the name. Slightly paler than last week’s version and with a white eye. Looks lovely intermingling with the pale pink one around the ‘bird bath’.
   
2. Dianthus plumarius ‘ Mrs Sinkins’ (I think this is what it is called) next to the blue-mauve Campanula portenschlagiana (Dalmatian bellflower) which featured last week and is flowering even more extensively now.  The Dianthus is an inherited plant and was flowering in early June when we first saw this property and garden. It isn’t flowering as well this year, I think the ‘Beast from the East’ may have something to do with that. The Campanula has travelled with me for many years, finally released to do its own thing once we moved in two years ago.
   
   

   

   
3. Hosta. I have long-forgotten the name of this hosta or  even when I bought it. It has been in a container for years though and appeared in photos in 2006. Occasionally receiving a top-up mulch it probably badly needs dividing, but I have no idea how I can physically remove it from this pot. Sadly it does get munched by the S&S even though I have used all sorts of deterrents: including copper, eggshells, gravel, and organic slug pellets. The snails often get onto the leaves by other means though as the leaves are large and hang down. Last year I used a garlic spray, but the snails continued chomping delighted with the garlic sauce. Now there’s a thought…
   
4. Weeping Buddliea alternifolia. Originating from China, this large deciduous shrub or small tree has arching branches that nearly touch the floor and produces clusters of sweetly scented purple-lilac flowers along it’s weeping branches. I had this in a container before moving here and it didn’t produce many flowers. This year is the best it has been, but I will need to prune out some of the crossing branches after flowering to bring it back into shape. And it really needs staking!
   I have seen it in a garden looking much more graceful than it does in mine.
   
5. Heuchera (Coral Bells) – ‘Marmalade’ and ‘Lime Marmalade’
   I have had both of these plants for several years,  again growing in containers until my move. I have split the plants and tried them in several different locations. They seem happiest along the ‘Woodland border’ where they are in shade most of the year and appear to be happy with their neighbours (ferns and hardy geraniums). This year they have been joined by several reddish Heucheras, a Heucherella and a Tiarella. Though the latter was planted under the weeping willow and didn’t do too well. I have since moved it from that location, but may still move it again if it doesn’t start to romp away. Apparently the deeper colours should be grown in sunlight and the paler ones do well in shade.
   
   

   

   
6. Crinodendron hookerianum (Chile Lantern tree) an evergreen shrub or small tree, with leathery, dark green leaves and nodding, urn-shaped flowers in the leaf axils. When I moved here this was a spindly thing totally covered by the Goat Willow tree it is planted next to. I have pruned that tree and removed a lot of the lower branches to leave a canopy and I tied the thin branches of the Chile lantern in a layered style along the fence until recently when I released them to see if now it can make its way upwards.
   
   

   

   

   It does add an exotic feel to the garden. And I’d really like more exotic looking hardy plants.

See here for the participant’s guide.

Six on Saturday