Summer Meadows



Predominant hues are orange and blue

It's been a few weeks since my last posting and the weather is partly to blame, having continued cool and wet throughout May, prompting some lush growth - especially of grass and weeds.  An inordinate amount of time is spent on cutting back, mowing, strimming and pulling out weeds by the bucketful.

But then comes the spectacle of seeing our carefully nurtured canvasses come to life!  Here's a picture of the back garden which you can compare to the one I posted back in March. 

Border in early June

Foxgloves have been in flower for a couple of weeks, providing some vertical interest until the hollyhocks get going later this month. 
We've probably got three different strains of digitalis, grown from seed at different times, and although I try to place them at strategic points they're happiest growing wherever the seeds happen to fall.

Echium vulgare

Another plant which has been in bloom for some time, blissfully unaffected by wind or rain, is the wild flower known as Vipers Bugloss (Echium vulgare).  You can see it on the left of the border above and we originally found it running to seed in a roadside planting near here.  That gentian blue is certainly eyecatching, even when you're driving past at 70 kph! 

This is a robust perennial, drought-tolerant, which adds colour and architecture to the back of the border.   It mixes well with the vivid Californian poppy and the large marigolds which flower so abundantly in early summer.

 

Oenothera odorata

Yellow accents are currently provided by the evening primrose which is another prolific self-seeder, from the same family as Gaura lindheimeri which we've frequently used to brighten up dry and inhospitable places.
 

I love this plant for the fact that its stems are tinged with red, whilst the saucer-shaped blooms fade to orange.  When fully open, both petals and stamens are a pure lemony yellow which really glow at dusk. 

In another garden we've used it as underplanting for a date palm, in a hot sunny position where there was very little soil, but it does equally well in semi-shade.  The flowers are delicately scented.

I might have mentioned that we arrived from England some ten years ago with a small garden already planted up in pots.  It wasn't deliberate but there was space in the removal van and the chaps were happy to load up a few shrubs and other containers from our old garden in Hampshire.  Most of the plants have thrived, including one little cerinthe seedling which has since spread itself throughout several gardens in the Charente Maritime! 

Cerinthe major

Every spring I pull out handfuls from the front bed where it's particularly well-established, but there's something about its glaucous curving stems that makes me leave a few specimens to contrast with dark tulips and Californian poppies, as seen here.  Bees seem to like it even though the flowers are rather well hidden.

And talking of bees, I have to nominate Deutzia as my shrub of the moment because it's absolutely 'clappered' in flowers (as Christina would say) and I should think there are at least 50 bees and hoverflies buzzing around it at any one time. 



Deutzia x magnificum




Close-up of blooms



What it lacks in scent, it makes up for in its graceful arching habit.  We cut down the euphorbias growing underneath so that nothing would detract from its moment of glory!

In the surrounding countryside this blossoming is echoed in swags of elderflowers down the lanes and white clouds of hedge bedstraw in the verges... their scent fills the air along with mown hay from the fields, evoking memories of childhood and damp summers in England.

Hedge Bedstraw & Scabious

It's a testament to how much rain has fallen in recent months that we're enjoying all this extra flowering.  Normally there would be just the odd pocket of Hedge Bedstraw (Galium molugo), which is a type of woodruff producing tiny sprays of white flowers, scented like honey, that eventually turn into small sticky burrs.

On a recent visit to Bordeaux at the end of May, we came across this municipal planting made up of hot, mounded colours which look so effective in bright light.  I didn't have a chance for close inspection but I think that wallflowers made up the orange sections - no doubt I'll be on the lookout for seeds we can grow ourselves!

A 'massif' in the Parc Bordeaux!