The original title for this blog post was going to be ‘Is it really nearly midsummer?,’ but the vagaries of our volatile weather add up to a 30C day today, kind out of out of the blue. Still the weekend was not so hot, and even cloudy and a bit showery, so we were able to gear up and tidy up some of the mental growth that the Garrigue Garden has got into, with nearly ten weeks of consistent rain.
I discovered that my miracle groundcover, Achillea crithmifolia, has found it hard to do the job so well this year. The persistent moisture led it to be floppy as opposed to carpet-like, and the pesky bramble, always there, opportunistically bust through in quite few places. Never mind. Just took hours of trying to be surgical and get down to the root junctions rather than just breaking it off, result being not a not bad job and sore hands and arms.
We are not Morocco, but the sun is so powerful that the courtyard looked positively Moroccan this morning. I was so glad I did my seaweed granule monthly topup and a good watering yesterday evening.
I bought this grand achillea because my favourite achillea, crithmifolia, is small in height and has a creamy flower, so I wanted to try a taller ground cover achillea, indestructible in heat, with a larger flower- and yellow. Achillea clypeolata has done the job, spreading over a good patch with three plants. They are seriously leggy having been watered so much, but the big yellow heads are fantastic and the insects adore them.
I have already banished dahlias from my life, they really don’t like me, and so I am returning the favour! And I was beginning to think that clematis might be going down that path as well, but this one, Clematis fargesii Paul Farges ‘Summer Snow’ has redeemed itself. I have one in the Barn Garden, which has always been reluctant, and so I thought I would try the same clematis growing into a dead apple tree in the full sun, poor soil of the front garden. Am I mad? Clearly. But look, it loves it. Masses of jolly white flowers and a delightfully chaotic habit, I am so thrilled. This may have really enjoyed all that rain. Funnily enough, at Chelsea more than 12 years ago, I remember talking to the Thorncroft Clematis man and asking what he would recommend for us in South West France, and he said anything late flowering, and now that I think of it, I did manage to grow Clematis tangutica from seed three times, two of which made it to Oloron and are busily romping though a hazlenut bush. So hats off to the Thorncroft man, although late summer in t tanguitcahe UK means now with us.
I am so pleased with this trio of Hydrangea quercifolias, who, incidentally, also adored the wet Spring. They were little twig cuttings three years ago, which in the rush of building the gardens from scratch got rather flung into the ground in the front garden, and left. They did almost nothing for nearly two years, and I think Andy even mowed them once by mistake. But last year, they started growing, and this year, are getting on for 75 cms tall and a metre wide, and they are flowering gigantically. Maybe next year, they will top out over the hazlenuts and almost take their place as a screen- which would be great.
This visit in 2017, part of the Gardens in the Wild Festival in Herefordshire, introduced me to the glory of Eremurus. Grendon Court Gardens were designed by Tom Stuart Smith, and are very lovely. But the absolute highlight in planting terms for me, was this mix of the golden Eremerus ‘Cleopatra’ and an upright dark blue Salvia. And when I asked the owner about this combination, she said that the Eremurus was not part of the original design, but was a later addition that she had made. Great choice.
So, ever since, I have toyed with the idea of trying Eremurus within the manageable conditions of a pot, rather than the unpredictable conditions in our garden spaces. And this year, I did it. Of the three Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’ bulbs that I bought, only one has flowered, and they are in the beginner stakes, not the Grendon Court VIP lane. But I have high hopes for next year, and thanks to Monty Don for his inspiring ‘How to plant Eremurus in a pot’ video.
And this is a story of recovery. I had grown from seed, over two and a bit years, two Euphorbia mellifera, which I had planted in semi shade in the Barn Garden before we went to Morocco. They were looking pretty good. Six weeks later, we came back and an absolutely giant weed had inserted itself into the root system of one of the Melliferas, so I dug it out carefully, managed to extract the three foot weed from the roots, and it being a wet day, I got distracted by something else and left the Mellifera out of the ground. Remembering the following morning, I rushed back and replanted it with plenty of water.
Two weeks later, it was looking bent double and very poorly, so I was furious with myself, but repotted it again in the hospital zone, and meantime found Mellifera ‘Agathe’ online and bought it. When it arrived, I planted it out where the damaged Mellifera had been. The photograph above is of the undamaged partner plant that I grew from seed, and below is ‘Agathe’. They do look different. ‘Agathe’ is a longer, leaner plant with smaller leaves, but will be hardier than my homegrown ones with smaller flowers. ‘Agathe’ is a new introduction, found here in the South West and not yet well known. So we’ll see and compare what happens.
But guess what? Back in the hospital zone in a pot, the orginal poorly treated Mellifera has finally bounced back, looking great with lots of new growth, and altogether in fine form. So, out of the mess, I have an experiment in growing two Melliferas side by side…and a seed grown original that I can find another place for next year.
Another, but planned, replanting last Autumn has improved the mood of my Melianthus major– a lovely cutting from my neighbour. Putting it against the wall has really encouraged it to bush out. The wall, though not a hot wall, must be dishing out some residual warmth all the same.
And this lovely rose has finally got used to it not being in Tostat. I love the noirish red of it, and the very generous old style flowers which also smell good. This rose, sometimes also called Noir de Chine or Black Caviar, is named for a very special woman, whose story I told in an earlier blog. Astrid Gräfin von Hardenburg may be a long name but it is the right name for this beautiful rose.
jardinecofriendly 
Thirty degrees does not sound so bad. (Of course, I needed to translate it to Fahrenheit.) I mean, after all, it is summer. Our summer has been oddly cool, so banana trees and Canna are growing a bit slower than they should. It is about thirty degrees (Celcius) today, but has been only a bit warmer and only a few times so far. As much as I enjoy mild weather, I am sort of concerned that there has not been enough warmer weather for some species. Your flowers always seem so fresh, as if blooming in early spring. It is as if they never experience warm and arid summer weather.
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