I don’t like windy weather. It makes me unsettled. I worry about everyone’s gardens. So much effort goes into growing flowers, fruit and veg, it’s heartbreaking when it’s destroyed by the weather.
I’ve waited all day for the wind to drop. It hasn’t. So it’s a blustery, sort of a walk around my garden. My dahlia stems are pointing in all kinds of crazy directions. I should have staked them better. But I didn’t. This one is still looking lovely though. It’s a decorative double called David Howard. Beautiful, orange-blushed flowers 10cm across, set off by bronze-tinted foliage. Plants grow to about 75cm, unless toppled by the rain and wind……. sigh.
Double flowers like these last around two to three weeks in a vase. They keep on opening up, like a ripple effect, until the centre is revealed. Well-known florist Jonathan Mosley gave a demonstration at the Belvoir Castle Show recently and revealed a few tips on getting the best out of cut flowers: Use a very sharp kitchen knife to cut flowers, not secateurs which crush the stems rather than cut them cleanly. Walk round with a bucket of very cold fresh water, and drop stems straight in, so air bubbles don’t get the chance to form in the stems. Cut flowers early in the morning and stand them up to their heads in water in a cool dark place such as a potting shed or garage for at least 6 hours before using them in arrangements. Giving them a really good drink makes them last much longer.
I’ve decided to go for an apricot-coloured theme this week. It might help calm our shattered nerves. This is one of my favourite rambling roses, Ghislaine de Feligonde. It flowers in huge swathes in June, and then puts out the occasional flower right through the summer. Bees love it, it’s free flowering and doesn’t get blackspot. All cause for a celebration, I think. Plus is looks good in a a vase.
In keeping with the colour scheme, there’s some beautiful seedling spider day lilies bred by Pollie Maasz at Pollie’s Lilies. These ones don’t have a name as they are trial plants. Pollie selects the best from her trials and registers new names. It’s a fascinating process and I’m glad to have some of her “babies” to try out here.
I am very fond of New Guinea hybrid impatiens. They flower all summer for no effort other than watering and feeding with seaweed extract or liquid tomato fertiliser. I don’t even bother to dead head them, they seem to sort themselves out. This one is Magnifico Star Orange. Cheerful even when it’s raining and blowing a hooley in the garden. I can always pretend I’ve been transported to the tropics.
I love begonias. This one is from the Apricot Shades range and is good for containers and hanging baskets. It will flower its heart out until the first frosts, then I’ll bring it in to the frost free greenhouse for winter. Dried off and kept indoors, it can be started into growth each spring. A really good value plant and so many lovely colours to choose.
Finally, from my pelargonium collection, there’s this beauty. This is one of the species hybrid pelargoniums from Fibrex Nursery. I think it is Pelargonium Ignescens, but will stand to be corrected. I have quite a few from the nursery and the labels have long gone. This one dates back to the 18th century and has pretty soft, downy leaves too.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your walk round my garden today, despite the howling wind! This is the view from the far hedge, in the back field behind my garden. It’s a wonderful place to stand and observe the weather. You can see for miles and today the farmer has started – then stopped – harvesting the corn. In a day, the crop will be safely gathered in, and the scene will change again, with ploughing the next sound we’ll be hearing.
Links: sos are https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/six-on-saturday-10-08-2019/#comments
Dahlia David Howard: https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/57111/i-Dahlia-i-David-Howard-(D)/Details
Rosa Ghislaine de Feligonde https://www.ashwoodnurseries.com/shop/rosa-rambling-ghislaine-de-feligonde.html
Pollie’s dayliles https://www.polliesdaylilies.co.uk/
Fibrex https://www.fibrex.co.uk/
Have you found that the common impatiens are available again? Someone else wrote about how the new varieties that are available are resistant to the mildew that prevented the common impatiens from being grown. We have some at work, but they seem to be the same old classics.
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I enjoyed your apricot theme, one of my fav colours in flowers. Both the dahlia & impatien did me in. I’ve sworn off dahlias for years because of the floostering they require, but yours . . . might bring me back to the fold.
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Thank you 😊
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I love the colour of the rose. David Howard is my number one dahlia.
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Mine too. Thank you Brian
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You have preserved some splendid blooms. Polly’s establishment has provided us with day lilies – she is very close to us.
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Oh, I didn’t know that. She is a lovely person and a great plants woman. Mine arrived via mail order and they look fabulous every year.
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The wind has been blowing here too…and like you I find it very testing. May I add another tip on flower cutting…if you have the forethought, use tap water ‘drawn’ a few hours previously, as with water fresh from the tap, there can be tiny bubbles in the water which can find their way up the stems.
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Oh, thank you Noelle. I’ll add that to the piece. Thanks again
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Most of your garden must be fairly sheltered with all your trees surely, Karen? My New Guinea impatiens hasn’t done well this year, unlike the ordinary busy Lizzies.
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The storms ripped through the trees and the whole garden was covered in a leaf mulch with twigs everywhere. I couldn’t face dealing with it on Sunday, so just went to my Mum’s. By Monday I’d regained my mojo and spent the day cutting back and propping up. Now more rain- and high winds. I’m hoping for calmer weather soon
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Gosh, sorry to hear that – it wasn’t as gusty here as had been forecast, more of a stiff breeze (what IS a ‘stiff’ breeze?!)
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Beautiful impatiens! Do you have other tropicals? (I would like to grow impatiens omeiana for example)
Nice pictures as always.
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Thank you Fred. No, I’ve tried tropical plants, but it’s too windswept here for them to survive. Good luck with your growing.
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What a beautiful collection of blooms. Such a contrast to my wintry garden where I’d be hard- pressed to pick a single flower, never mind a vase full! Great advice on keeping flowers healthy for a vase too, thank you. I love your view from the far hedge.
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Thank you Jane. It’s a very windswept view today!
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