Six on Saturday: Ballerinas, Bells and Beautiful Blooms

Oriental poppies in any shade may look dramatic when in bloom, but don’t flower for long, flop unattractively and certainly don’t die back well. Somehow they still merit space in a border, but if they start thinking they can take over the world then they are OUT, although removing them is never as easy as one would like it to be. I have a basic fiery scarlet one, pale coral pink Papaver ‘Princess Victoria Louise’ and the more recent acquisition above, ‘Royal Wedding’. The blooms on this one seem particularly large, especially when the petals are splayed out like a frilly tutu – no doubt they will be gone by tomorrow!

I mentioned in my review of May that I was increasingly happy with the borders. The blue & white borders, home to the ‘Royal Wedding’ poppies, were the most recent to get an overhaul and are certainly full of blue and white plants, albeit with many of those on the blue spectrum being sprawling geraniums. As plants establish, those less worthy may be removed, like these blue and campanula (C persicifolia?) which are useful fillers but have a tendency to spread themselves around.

It is a wonderful time of year for roses, and with plenty of sunny periods of late their fragrance is present throughout the garden. The Golfer has already extended the horizontals of the arch supporting ‘Strawberry Hill’, but it is so floriferous and the stems so heavy that they have been known to break under their weight, and a further rethink might be required. With its strawberry pink colour and  strong, sweet fragrance (myrrh and honey, according to David Austin), it quickly became one of my favourite roses. Close by, on an arch at the back of the clematis colonnade, R ‘Wollerton Old Hall’ just cannot compare, although ‘Strawberry Hill’ had a couple of years’ start.

 

 

 

 

 

Sticking with roses, I must be able to see about eight or nine different roses from the kitchen window, so there has been much staring done recently. ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ has been starring on a fence at the back of the shrub border for a few weeks, but matching her pinkness this last week has been the smaller blooms of ‘Harlow Carr’ (below) at the front of the shrub border, not yet leggy as she has a tendency to become later in the season.

Most staring, however, has been at ‘Rural England’, clambering through the apple trees. Shown on Wordless Wednesday recently, she has just got better and better in recent years, exceeding any expectations I might have had – which did not include a long haul trip upwards into the apples. A repeat flowering rambler from Peter Beales, it receives minimal attention, merely any deadheading and cutting back dead side shoots that can be achieved from ground level, and a bit of rose fertiliser each year. A photo like this just does not do it justice and you would have to see it in person to fully appreciate how stunning it is – or, hmm, perhaps I could do a video one of these days…

With many thanks to Jim, the genial host of this Six on Saturday meme – why not check out his website at Garden Ruminations for more garden highlights from around the world?