What's Looking Good in August 2011

Lovely Clare, that clematis is a fabulous colour.

 

It goes on flowering for ages and ages too. Definitely one of my favourite plants! I love your thalictrums, Simbad - they're really gorgeous.

 

Hi Catztail

By the dark one I'm guessing you are referring to "summer chocolate"?

I find it to be totally hardy.
I do find that heat and strong sunshine is really needed for flowering.
The flowers either dont open or look sad in wet weather.

If you are very serious about growing an Albizzia, I'd definitely go for a grafted named variety.

 

Hi Clare .
The one in the photo was unamed and I've had it over 10yrs , but has a good scent , I have 'White Lady' very light scent but not very white, 'The Speaker' paler blue with a white eye .not such large flowers but heavy scent .
Best kept very dry in the winter in best heat you have ,January seems the crunch time with the poor light as well ..

Dave

 

Butterflies love my Joe Pye Weed.

 

Thank you Dave for the useful advice. Good to know you're keeping your named varieties going as they're getting harder and harder to find.

 

So many lovely photographs everyone. Thank you all. They always say that August can be a rather thin month, but my garden just seems to be coming alive.


Salvia atrocyanea with Hollyhocks in the background.


Agapanthus about to come out, with Oreganum in ourple behind and Sedum telphium.


Four different Echiums. They are biennials (or triennials) from Madeira, so they make a big rosette at first then throw up a flower spike. The big one is E. pininana in a 50 litre pot.


Echium boissieri has just flowered for me for the first time.


This one makes me laugh. Leonotus nepetifolia in orange. An annual that is currently about 8 feet high.


A seriously troubled Datura. Already a double flower, but you can see growth inside that is trying to make it a triple flower.


Salvia patens 'Cambridge Blue', with Geranium 'Ann Folkard' in purple behind.


Salvia splendens is the dumpy red bedding Salvia you see so often in garden centres. This is the species from which all the cultivars came. In its native Brazil, it can reach 9 feet. But 4 or 5 is the most here.


Persicaria (red spikes), with Crocosmia 'Lucifer' in bright scarlet and Astilbe chinensis behind.


Yellow Hemerocallis in the foreground, with Crocosmia 'Lucifer' behind and a pink Lythrum 'Blush' behind that. And Geranium 'Patricia' in the background on the right.

 

Beautiful flowers PeterS. My mam has had me all over the place today looking for the Salvia patens 'Cambridge Blue', and in the end we had to give up! I'll not mention i've seen it on here tonight, but i will order her one online because looking at these photographs it is as gorgeous as she said.

 

Gorgeous pics as always, Peter. I love the salvia family. It's a shame that a lot of people think of them only as those regimented little red soldiers you see in formal bedding.

Pixie, Hayloft Plants stocks young 'Cambridge Blue' plants:-

Plant collections and Gardening Goods including Young Plants and Bare Roots - Hayloft Plants

I find it isn't reliably hardy in my garden so I grow it in pots and put them under cover for the winter. The pots also help to keep the slugs and snails at bay, as they seem to be very partial to the leaves.

 

Wow fabulous pictures PeterS, love the first salvia, is that a hardy one?
Pixie the salvia patens is very easy from seed and flowers first year,if I remember rightly I bought my first seeds from Thompson and Morgan, I now collect the seed each year and sow fresh, as Clare says its not particularly hardy.

 

Hi Clare .
This is another one called Gatton Park .very scented ..
I researched Heliotrope a while back and most varieties very similar ,then I managed to soure 4 named varieties from a lady in Norfolk..

Gatton Park



Dave

 

That's lovely, Dave - at this rate you'll soon be the custodian of the national collection of heliotropes! I'm glad there are enthusiasts with the skill to keep them going as they seem to have gone out of fashion in a big way. Generally, you can only get 'Marine', which is pretty but not as strongly scented as some of the older varieties. Even Read's Nursery, which used to stock a couple of named plants, has given up on them.

 

Hi Simbad - thanks for the comments. Salvia atrocyanea has a similar habit to S. patens. They are both tuberous and will take a bit of frost, but are not really hardy. They both flower readily in the first year - they don't normally flower till about this time of the year anyway, so in terms of flowering time its about even stevens from seed or from the tubers. But you will probably get a bigger plant from the tubers. S. atrocyanea is a larger plant than patens -it gets up to 4 or 5 feet with me.

There are quite a few tuberous Salvias - S. guaranitica and rhinosina are others.

If you (or anyone else) want some seed for atrocyanea - do say. I have just looked and don't have any spare left, but should have some later in the year.

 

Thanks for the info PeterS not heard of atrocyanea or the other tuberous ones you mentioned, really love salvias and the taller the better, like my huge perennials,would love some seed later in the year if you have some to spare , very kind of you, do you have salvia glutinosa and verticillata? as I'll be collecting seed from them in my garden so you're welcome to some later if you like, both are completely hardy, also will have some seed of salvia sclarea 'Piemont' soon.

 

Those flowers are STUNNING!!!