Tag Archives: Summer

In a Vase on Monday: Winter Dreams

by

It’s cold and icy outside, so in order to join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden with a vase this week I am using some dried flowers again.

These Echinops were picked last summer while still in their prime and have stood in this old maple syrup bottle ever since.
In the search for good (well, still not brilliant!) lighting I stood the jar in front of the book rest I have on my desk. I always have a page of one of my garden books open here, for inspiration. This picture is of a Piet Oudolf garden – I love the choice of plants and the focus on late summer flowers and grasses.

This week I have been reading about one of Oudolf’s most recent gardens, created just within Germany at the Vitra Campus, on the border to Switzerland and France. You can read about it here. It would be a 5 or 6 hour car drive for me, but one day I will have to visit.

In the meantime, I can dream!

Have a great week (and sweet gardening dreams). 😉

In a Vase on Monday: Pink Serenade

by

Anemone ‘Serenade’ is flowering, so before it gets spoilt by the rain (Ha Ha! Note the sarcasm!) I picked a couple of them for today’s vase.

I decided to stay with the pink theme. Pink vase, pink Scabiosa, pink Cosmos and pink Knapweed.

Along with the Knapweed, the only thing growing in the open ‘grass’ is the Queen Anne’s Lace, so I added some of that and some Calamagrostis, Deschampsia and Stipa.

 

The upturned log I have placed the vase on is cracking and will probably fall apart soon, but it has made the yard look rustic over the past two years. 😃

I am linking in to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Cathy invites us to join her in sharing a vase of flowers from in or around our gardens each Monday. So pop over for an idea of what is flowering around the globe. 😃

Have a good week, and if you are waiting for rain I do hope you see some.

☔️😃☔️

Six on Saturday, 13th August 2022

by

Here in Germany, like in many other parts of Europe, there has been practically no rain since late spring. The garden is parched, and no amount of watering seems to make a difference. The strong winds have been relentless here, drying the ground and burning up foliage. Our trees are wilting, shrubs in the hedges we planted are dying, and the flower beds have all but been abandoned to their fate. I know so many of you are also lamenting the lack of rain. It is frustrating, but we can do little about it. So I shall focus on some of the positive things this August.

1. My vegetable garden has done well and I have harvested more than we can eat. My freezer is bursting at the seams! The yellow wild cherry tomatoes are the most productive and easy to care for tomatoes I have ever grown, and taste good too. I have also grown some sweetcorn for the first time this year and we have eaten a few cobs already, although really we should wait another week or two for them to fatten up. Delicious!

2. My Japanese Anemone opened a few days ago and is looking happy, despite a few brown leaves. I love this deep pink one – ‘Serenade’ – a pleasant change from the paler ones that seem more common.

3. The Perovskia looks magical (with the Gaura just about hanging on in the background). In fact, it looks better for the lack of rain!

4. Stipa gigantea is still shining, here with the best of the Tithonia finally reaching about a metre (the others are less than 30 cm high) and a couple of sunflowers – sadly not as grand as last year when I had dozens of enormous sunflowers, but sunflowers nonetheless.

5. The Gaillardia are looking good – one of the toughest flowers I have, flowering non-stop despite gale-force winds and scorching sun. And loved by the bees etc.

6. And finally, a bit of an oddity…. a Hellebore flowering in the full sun in August!

I realised when finishing this post that I had six photos and it is Saturday. So I am finally participating in Jon the Propagator’s ‘Six on Saturday’ meme for the first time. If you visit Jon’s blog you will find links to other gardeners posting six garden-related things on a Saturday. Many thanks to Jon for hosting this meme. 😃

Happy gardening, and wishing all those in a drought lots of long and gentle showers!

🌧🌧🌧

 

In a Vase on Monday: Glorious Globes

by

This Monday, after a week off, I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden again for her weekly vase meme. And I decided to choose a global theme today – literally!

Globes.

After all the hot and harsh winds over the past few weeks, with no rain in sight, the flower beds are literally disintegrating. But this has meant structure is playing more of a role, and I have noticed a lot of round shapes in both flowers and seedheads.

Firstly an Allium seedhead and the fresh Allium ‘Millenium’ which is the latest flowering one I have found. I also added a Nigella seedhead (slightly oval), and a sedum – also much rounder in form before actually flowering.

And the Echinops of course – a perfect globe. The orange seed heads of Gaillardia too.

Then the Succisella inflexa ‘Frosted Pearl’ (which is very drought tolerant) and the seedhead of Scabiosa perfecta.

(The grass I added is my current favourite: Deschampsia ‘Schottland’. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but have slowly fallen in love with it!)

The Scabiosa close up is quite remarkable…

Naturally I used a globe shaped vase and found a prop to match too….

This ‘marble’ came from the Kugelmühle (‘Marble Mill’) near Berchtesgaden in the German Alps, right on the border to Austria. Founded in the seventeenth century, this mill ground stones to perfect globes, which were sold as marbles – toys for children – exported via Rotterdam and London to all over the world. There were in fact many such mills in the region in past centuries. This particular mill is still working, and is a lovely spot for a walk in a shady ravine on a hot summer’s day. And there is of course a beer garden for a refreshing drink too! Aah, nice memories of holidays in the mountains!

Have a good week, and stay cool! 😎

In a Vase on Monday: Water off a Duck’s Back

by

The Dog Days are here and the garden is now taking on its shabby look for high summer. But a few stars have been shining on regardless of the hot winds and strong sun, taking it all like the proverbial ‘water off a duck’s back’! So I decided to highlight these in my vase this week. If you are new to this blog, I join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden every Monday for this lovely meme, where we all find something from our gardens to share in a vase.

My little duck was given to me some years ago by a sales lady in a gift card shop, from her window display… such a kind gesture. 😃

First off, the Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’ which has appeared a couple of times recently on my blog. It is so blue, such a tough little plant and the bees love it. 😃

Perovskia. It doesn’t matter what the weather, this shrub comes back stronger by the year. The only thing you can do to hurt it here is to cut it back too hard before it has started showing new shoots in spring. (Or give it too much water and shade perhaps!) I used the stalwart P. ‘Blue Spire’.

Euphorbias. The tall Euphorbia seguieriana tends to flop, but I forgive it for the citrusy zing it adds to the garden. It refreshes and energizes just by looking at it. 😃 One stem I used here is Euphorbia cornigera ‘Goldener Turm’ which is still standing tall.

Gaura. The sun may singe flowers, but since they open new flowers on their long flower stalks daily this isn’t a problem. And they look lovely waving in a breeze/strong wind!

Echinacea. The only thing that might stop these flowering is the slugs in spring. But some of mine seem resistant to them too. The white one is ‘Fragrant Angel’ and is my tallest, at about a meter high. I also added a small pink E. ‘Pica Bella’.

Scabiosa. I cut them back after the initial flowering and they carry on flowering intermittently through the summer. Another bee magnet.

The grasses. I added a few stems of Calamagrostis, one of my favourite grasses at this time of year. With its defiant upright stance it faces the wind and sun like a real warrior. This one is C. Waldenbuch which has slightly paler seedheads than others.

Finally, I added some Daucus carota/Queen Anne’s Lace, which is growing wild absolutely everywhere this year, clearly enjoying the sunny weather.

Which plants take the summer heat or drought like water off a duck’s back in your garden? Do share!

And have a great week!