Another week of cloud and drizzle and wind. The grass has been too wet to cut however between downpours I have pulled out several Borage plants that were taking over the raised bed, one with a stem as wide as my arm! And hundreds of seedlings. Be warned, once you sow Borage you will never be without it. The self-seeded foxgloves have gone too and the self-seeded poppies all of which were too big for my small space. I now have some room so I will try and get some new Heleniums for the late summer season as mine have died, though I do have a few odds and sods cuttings that might plug the gaps.
Without any more preamble let’s have a quick look at six things in the garden this week:
(1) Geranium x renardii has lovely soft bright green leaves that form a lovely mound. I have said before that they don’t flower very much so I was surprised to see these the other day. I also have a Geranium himalayense ‘Derrick Cook’ which although has very different leaves does have a similar flower. Derrick has been moved around a fair bit and has yet to put on any real growth, I am hoping that his new position suits him well.
(2) On the ‘Cornish hedge’ I planted a few varieties of Campanula. They always get eaten but I managed to capture this photo of Campanula ‘Dickson’s Gold’ which is a low-growing, clump-forming perennial with yellow-green, heart-shaped leaves with jagged edges that contrasts beautifully with the blue-violet flowers. Campanula carpatica however seems to have disappeared altogether. I need to take some more photos of the wall as it is looking quite nice now. The Ox-eye daisies are not suitable though as they grow too tall and the wind flattens them and my other mystery flower (6) with the feathery fronds turns out to be Daucus carota (wild carrot).
Back in the garden and in a container with an obelisk are my annual climbers for this year. Fed up with the disappointing performance of sweet peas the last couple of years I decided not to plant any this year, but try something new. (3) Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata ‘African Sunset‘) and (4) Purple Bell Vine (Rhodochiton atrosanguineus) were purchased from Sarah Raven as seedlings as I don’t have a lot of success with raising plants from seed. They are growing, but very slowly, I hope they will eventually reach the top of the obelisk if we get some warmer weather!
(5) Penstemon ‘Sour Grapes’ – the magenta-blue flowers this penstemon has a metallic sheen, reminiscent of black grapes, which contrasts particularly well with deep purples and blues. It is of course planted in my purple themed bee and butterfly bed 🙂 Last year I got one short spike of flowers towards the end of summer so I am very pleased to see several pretty spikes this year. I don’t think it is very hardy though
(6) And finally, a question to all you gardeners out there. What has happened to this clematis? It is growing up an obelisk in my raised bed and was a small plant from ASDA last year. This year it has grown slowly and struggled with S&S and wind. Now I have a lovely pretty pink flower, but further up the vine these white flowers/leaves are appearing. They seem to be flowers until you look closely and see there are no stamens and they are more like leaves! But why the colour distortion? I’ve seen the green distortion on clematis flowers before, but not this. Any clues?
Yesterday the warmer weather returned, which was just as well as I had a couple of hours to kill outdoors whilst waiting for my car to be repaired. In the afternoon the lawn finally got mown and borders tidied. Today has been window cleaning day (no wind so I can finally open the Velux windows) which is why this post is late and then it will be nice to simply sit out on the Zen Patio and enjoy the sunshine.
As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.
See here for the participant’s guide.
Cornwall in Colours 
send me all the poppies and borage, anything to compete with the ground elder will be good at my place!
It looks lovely to me Jude – I’m grateful if anything grows easily! We’ve let a couple of creepers grow in our garden which I think are technically weeds but they looks so pretty and colourful!
Bindweed can look prettily when flowering, but it strangles everything it grows up.
Yes its name is probably a giveaway! We have an orange trumpet vine, which is classed as a weed but it does seem to coexist with other stuff we have growing along our fence. Then we have a creeper with purple flowers but we do have to rip that out frequently or it does strangle stuff such as our grapevines.
I tried growing the orange trumpet vine, but it didn’t survive. That’s the sort of weed that I would allow 😉
It does really well here must like the West Australian climate!
wow i like the campanula! i have a similar colour combination with a lime leafed agastache. i will look out for the campanula though.
It is very pretty. I should try to divide it and plant some where I can see it more often 😊
Albino leaves? That’s different!
My clematis this summer is also behaving unusually. The flowers are very small, although there are many more of them than usual. So far our summer has been exceptionally hot so I wondered if that might be the reason. On the other hand, my neighbour’s clematis looks like it’s on steroids.
That little geranium is a pretty plant. Did you get any answers on the clematis mystery?
That’s my favourite penstemon. It’s such a lovely colour combination.