Late July

"I don't really enjoy beds carved out of a lawn and

looking thoroughly self-conscious. Open jam tarts

my mother used to call them."

- Christopher Lloyd

An enterprising gardener has sown a meadow in front of her
bungalow on a rather unprepossessing new estate

Of course, one way of avoiding the 'jam tart' effect is to plant your very own meadow ...

Alas not all of us have enough space in our gardens, but it's becoming popular around some of our neighbouring villages where there's an unused field or a vacant lot which needs prettifying - and cosmos seems to be the 'go-to' plant.

Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare)
growing with common ragwort

Elsewhere nature has done the job for us, spreading carpets of mauve and yellow across fallow hillsides and clifftops.

This seems to have been a particularly good season for wild marjoram which normally comes into flower in August. Decorative though it is, I can't say we have much use for this mild type of oregano as a culinary herb, though maybe it has more flavour when dried.

So many plants and crops are early this year due to the scorching weather we had in June, followed by lots of rain and further lengthy bouts of sunshine.

Sunflower Season!

Blue fescue - grown as a weed
suppressant perhaps?

We noticed sunflowers were already blooming in June and many are inevitably going over now.

In a normal year, July is the best month for photographing them - the green lines of our neighbours' vineyards are broken up with streaks of vivid yellow.

Above us on the hill here I notice that the field margins appear to have been planted with blue fescue grass which, from a distance, looks exactly like the foliage on my garden pinks.

This grass seems to do well on chalky soil and pops up in various fields locally, but I've never seen it growing so uniformly as edging which makes me think it must have been sown deliberately.

View over our valley to the village of Barzan

For me, the word Gladiolus instantly conjures up an image of our suburban garden in the 1960's, when my brother delighted us by planting lots of gladioli corms supplied by a local nurseryman.

Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby' next to
a dark leaved Physocarpus

He grew them in the veg plot, in neat rows for cutting, where mother could do her Constance Spry bit and choose from subtle shades of yellow and salmon pink, or the less than subtle tones of vivid orange and scarlet.  (I think all colours were in vogue until Dame Edna made a mockery of them!)

I daresay many are back in fashion now but we find it hard to look beyond the species types like Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby' which began flowering a month ago and is still providing welcome splashes of deep magenta amongst surrounding greenery. 

Looking at Beth Chatto's website just now, I see the original Gladiolus papilio has drooping bell-shaped flowers similar in its colourway to Helleborus niger. I think it might be another must-have for the late summer border, growing up to a meter tall with narrow grey-green leaves.

Echinacea

Echinacea purpurea

There's certainly no shortage of pale pink in the garden right now and I'm glad that echinacea flowers over a long period, especially in the semi-shade under an ash tree.

As with many such 'coneflowers' from the prairies of North America, these blooms develop in shape and hue as they mature, creating interesting subjects for photography as well as for indoor display.

'Green Jewel' is a more compact variety of Echinacea purpurea and was developed by plantsman Piet Oudolf in The Netherlands.

It stands out in shadier locations and is definitely one of our favourite plants when it comes to stems for cutting.

Nicotiana alata 'Lime Green' looking fabulous with
orange Cosmos sulphurea and a mauve geranium

New Plantings

As usual this spring I sowed a number of different seeds to produce some quick growing annuals, like lobelia and cosmos, as well as a few half-hardy annuals which can produce flowers within about three months.

Antirrhinum majus
'Appleblossom'

Having had great success with the Chiltern Seeds antirrhinum 'Black Prince' last year, I checked their latest catalogue for another variety to add contrast to our summer bedding.

Antirrhinum majus 'Appleblossom' is destined to grow even taller than its cousin 'Black Prince', which earlier this year produced substantial bushes about 50cm tall and has now been cut down.

I've dotted several of the new plants in different areas to see what works best and so far they're all fairly small but still managing to produce robust flowers with pale-pink petals and yellow throats.

Volutaria muricata 'Desert Star' with the
orange petals of Cosmos

Morocco Knapweed is not a plant I've come across before and, looking at it, you might assume that it's part of the Centaurea family.

In fact it's now designated as Volutaria muricata and this variety was in a packet of seeds which came with a recent gardening magazine.

It's easy to grow, with thankfully less foliage than most centaureas, and has reached a height of about 50cm, blooming rather sporadically but still quite effective against contrasting flowers like Cosmos sulphurea.

As it's from Morocco, I'm hoping it will be drought-tolerant!

Aster pyrenaeus 'Lutetia'

Aster 'Lutetia'

Another starry plant which is lighting up a shady corner is this pretty Aster which we found at Beth Chatto's nursery last autumn.

I associate Michelmas daisies with late summer but I'm glad to see this one already looking so at home in its new situation and hope the dainty little flowers will keep on coming.

To quote Beth's website, this variety will make a bushy mound "smothered to the ground with pale lilac-blue flowers" - and what's more, it doesn't suffer from mildew!

Cerambyx cerdo - impressive,
but rather a saddo really

Capricorn

A somewhat scary-looking longhorn beetle called the Great Capricorn Beetle appeared on the wall of our garden shed the other day and was disinclined to move, even when prodded.

We looked him up online and discovered that he's another of those endangered species sometimes mistaken for a pest. 

They usually live in the dead-wood of oak trees (which might be why he appeared next to our log store) and emerge during summer to mate, surviving for just a few weeks and mainly active at twilight. Not quite such a scary beast after all ...

Back garden at the end of July, with crocosmia starting to peak

Changeable weather

Talmont-sur-Gironde under a stormy sky