Coast of Sunflowers

"Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers,

Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea."

- Swinburne

An iconic view of the Gironde Estuary

Limestone cliffs, fishing huts perched on stilts and rolling fields of sunflowers... this may well be the lasting image that many holiday-makers take home with them.

Add to that the familiar sound of skylarks, singing madly as they flutter high upon a hill; or young buzzards mewing plaintively over the valleys, while insects chirrup and hum in grass verges. Contentment reigns.

Vines interspersed with sunflowers

Another typical view of the landscape on our doorstep shows a path linking two parts of our village - Chenac and Petit Chenac.

Locals still farm their inherited plots, accounting for the variegated patchwork of small fields and vineyards - which some might deem hopelessly romantic and impractical, but provide no end of inspiration for pictures.

I'm very happy to say that sunflowers are still a popular crop in these parts, though I hear that in other areas they're being supplanted by the far less appealing soya bean.

Neighbour with a sunny outlook

Charente Maritime

This is the name of our coastal département in southwest France which has recently been incorporated into the large administrative area of Nouvelle Aquitaine - 'old' Aquitaine having once belonged to England (for 300 years!) until reverting to France in 1453.

I read the other day that Charente Maritime is now the number one holiday destination for the French - surprising really, as many claim not to know where it is, although most have heard of its capital, the port of La Rochelle.

Sailboat on the Gironde Estuary

Early development of a sunflower,
reflecting an almost metallic sheen 

Freshly baled field

These shots are all taken within walking distance of our holiday cottage, La Maree, which is popular with couples and small families who enjoy walking and cycling along the rural pathways.

There's nothing quite like cycling past sunflowers to collect your fresh croissant from the boulangerie for breakfast!

Early mornings are the best time to get out and about, enjoying that slight nip in the air before the sun really puts its hat on. But here on the coast it rarely becomes unpleasantly hot or humid because the breeze is never far away - by midday it's usually flapping the parasol and can be quite gusty by 5pm when the day is hottest.

Natural companions - interspersed with hedge parsley

Carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea)

The abundance of seed on sunflowers has led to local production of sunflower oil - huile de tournesol - an excellent alternative to olive oil and better for cooking purposes.

Seeds are also favoured by a number of different birds and insects, including the scarily large carpenter bee which is very big but quite harmless. Indeed it has wonderful blue-black wings which make a striking contrast with the golden flowers.

Once the seeds have matured, finches take the opportunity to swoop down and enjoy a nutritious feast.

Bad hair day?

As July burns into August, these seed heads become ever more pronounced and petals start to look distinctly bedraggled...

The end of summer is nigh...

By September they are really browned-off, hanging their heads in shame at having lost their sunny radiance.

The stems turn a sort of plasticky yellow, then gradually morph to chocolate-brown as they dry out - along with their seeds which become almost black.

Now when you walk past these fields, you're aware of the creepy rustling of dried leaves as an early autumn breeze begins to whisper through the plantation.

Your imagination can easily conjure up scary shapes of the 'undead' - very Stephen King!

By late September the Grim Reaper is on his way!

Mid July

"All the seeds of tomorrow

can be found in the flowers of today."

- Indian proverb

Sailboat entering the fishing port at Meschers sur Gironde

Holiday-makers are thronging to our beachside resorts and little ports, welcomed by the full-on sun and temperate breezes.

At this time of year, we're more than happy to take refuge in our shady back garden, keeping an eye on any plants which show signs of wilting, and only venturing out for walks in the late evening or early morning.

A path along the Gironde at Barzan Plage

One shrub which brightens up coastal areas is the deceptively feathery-looking Tamarisk - also spelt Tamarix - which is often grown in saline soils and provides a useful windbreak.

It may look wispy but is actually very robust and stands up to buffeting salt-laden winds before rewarding us with a profusion of pink blooms.

Tamarisk pentandra blooming in July

Apparently there are two main types of this shrub appearing on the marais and coastal margins locally.

As far as I can make out, the form known as Tamarisk tetandra blooms in springtime, whilst the slightly darker flowers of Tamarisk pentandra are widely in evidence now.

Pretty though it is, I'd find it a trifle too messy and undisciplined for most gardens - unless, of course, you're lucky enough to be right on the shore!

Evening sun picking out individual flowers

Having said that, our back garden is starting to look distinctly wild and exuberant in mid-July, stuffed as it is with an array of flowering plants jostling for space, each species seeking its moment in the spotlight.

Summer Colour

Close to the table where we eat supper, are the nodding heads of Campanula carpatica which thrives in semi-shade and comes alive when the low evening light shines through its delicate harebells.

As with so many of our blue/mauve flowers, we intersperse them with contrasting orange blooms - in this case the annual Cosmos sulphureus 'Polidor mix' from Chiltern Seeds.

Scabious atropurpurea
'Black Knight' being
visited by a Meadow Brown

Scabious is a plant which grows well on our chalky soil and we managed to get hold of this many-branched variety called 'Black Knight' which is covered with dark pincushion flowers and stands out well in the border.

With its tall, strong stems this makes a good variety for cutting and my only criticism might be that the flowers turn to seed a bit too quickly. At this point in summer, we can spend an awful lot of time dead-heading in order to keep plants looking their best!

Salvia 'Amistad'

Salvias are an excellent species for injecting some drama into a sunny border... None more so than 'Amistad' which boasts deep purple flowers sprouting from an almost black calyx.

It's a hybrid which was developed in Argentina and is slightly tender in our climate. This one is similar in style to one of our favourites, Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue', now standing about 2m high at the back of the herb bed.

'Amistad' is not quite as tall or bushy as yet but its flowers are larger and the shrub may well fill out this season as we continue to dead-head spent blooms.

Oenothera 'Apricot Delight' -
aptly named, it's a luminous
 yellow fading to apricot

Evening primrose is one of those plants which continues to delight the eye throughout summer.

We grew this variety from seed a few years ago and it happily reproduces itself throughout the garden - a bit like Gaura lindheimeri, a relative with similar-looking seedlings. We pull up most of the babies to stop it getting out of hand, but there's always an odd one popping up between other perennials, surprising us with a fresh, slightly scented flower each day.

Geranium 'Patricia' - flowers for weeks

For lots of vibrant, trouble-free colour you can't beat some of the modern cranesbill geraniums, especially those like 'Patricia' which have been given the RHS Award for Garden Merit.

This one has been scrambling under the medlar tree and producing a steady stream of large flowers (5cm across) since the middle of June.

Verbena rigida teamed with
Dianthus superbus

Like many types of geranium, we've found that both Verbena rigida and Dianthus superbus do well in full sun or partial shade.

This combination wasn't exactly planned but is perhaps more effective in a shady area where the subtle shape of the pale mauve dianthus and the intense violet of the verbena really come into their own.

Both make reliable and lovely perennials, cultivated from seed supplied by Chiltern Seeds.

Eryngium planum

To introduce something spikily different into our raised bed with its free-draining soil, we planted this eryngium which has an attractive mix of marbled leaves and silvery bracts.

I'm not sure what variety this is, having bought it sparsely labelled from a nursery after we had trouble trying to raise any from seed.

Yes, it's pretty but I still lust after the smaller Eryngium bourgatii with its steely blue stems. Perhaps it's time to try again? 

Echinacea purpurea
- one of those flowers which looks
fabulous just at the moment of opening!

Birds and beasts...

One morning we stepped out to the sound of excited quacking and discovered we were being paid a social call by a quartet of young ducks.

They took a tour round the garden  - luckily the cat wasn't awake - and became hysterical when they couldn't find a way back to their nearby stream.

Eventually, three of them managed to squeeze through a gap in the fence, leaving the fourth and fattest member of the quartet to squawk indignantly until it finally found its escape through the open gate!

Une rainette or European tree frog

Meanwhile, our old friend Froggie has taken up residence at the back of the herb bed where we planted a seedling from what we thought was a peach tree.

It appears he's carefully guarding the single fruit which is maturing nicely but I'm afraid it doesn't look like a white peach - as Christina had hoped - but is probably a rather ordinary nectarine.

Ah well, you can't complain too much if you get fruit for free, even though we may end up fighting over who gets to eat it. (Let's hope it won't be Froggie... )

Roe deer at evening in a crop of sunflowers

Late June

"When you realise how perfect everything is, you will

tllt your head back and laugh at the sky."

- Buddha

Hay bales drying before the next downpour

After the shock result of the EU Referendum, and the thought of certain right-wing politicians just waiting in the wings for their moment to come, perhaps we all need a bit of Buddha in our lives...?

Catanache flower with a hungry
bee filling its pollen sacs

Continuing cool and cloudy weather hasn't helped our spirits much either, although flowers do tend to last better when they haven't been subject to prolonged heat.

There's certainly plenty of pollen around but it's hard for insects like butterflies to keep flying when the wind is blowing in strong north-westerly gusts. Having said that, our lavender flowers have attracted even more hummingbird hawkmoths than usual, which is encouraging to see.

Lavender 'Munstead Dwarf' making a nice
foil for the bright orange hyssop,
Agastache aurantiaca

One of the most vibrant colour combinations in our flower beds is provided by purple or blue flowers grown alongside the flaming orange of hyssop or Cosmos sulphurea, which is yet to come.

Agastache aurantiaca was our first introduction to growing hyssops, picked from Chiltern Seeds' collection because they promised it would flower in its first season. They were right - it's an easy one to start off with and the flowers on this plant have been increasing year on year.

Since then, we've grown some of the taller Mexican varieties - like 'Sangria' - which make dramatic additions to our late-Summer border but are not always hardy through winter.

Colour selections

Achillea "Terracotta'
next to Catanache caerulea

Another useful perennial for dry, sunny borders is Achillea millefolium which comes in many colours and grows up to 90cm.

I ordered a mixed selection called 'Summer Pastels' from Chiltern Seeds last year and it's fun to see which colours are emerging now and how they're combining - or not! - with neighbouring plants.

In the case of perennials, you can easily move those which clash once they are dormant again at the end of the year.

So far, we seem to have got some pink, including a pretty salmon colour, plus some white - and there's more to come.

Palely loitering...

Readers of this blog will know that I always wax lyrical about using foxgloves in the shadier parts of our garden. 

Over the years we've experimented with different types in varying shades of pink and white: some more spotted than others; some with tubular flowers which point up rather than down... the list is seemingly endless if you're a real foxglove fan!

Digitalis x mertonensis
an RHS choice plant

This summer we have a new one which is still blooming in the front garden, planted just in front of an escallonia hedge where it's in shade for much of the day.

As you can see from this picture, its main flower spike unfortunately developed at an angle due to the fact that we didn't trim the hedge before it began madly sprouting, cutting off access to the light above.

Digitalis purpurea annua 'Sutton's Apricot'
- another RHS recommendation available
from Chiltern Seeds

The other mertonensis plants grew straight and sturdy, with
neat rosettes of dark green leaves which resisted being chewed or discoloured - although Christina did find they were harbouring a host of snails underneath!

It may have been our damp weather but I didn't like the way its flowers faded, turning brown at the edges before shrivelling.

'Sutton's Apricot', on the other hand, looked lovely right up to the end, as did our original alba's which are delightfully speckled and glow in the late evening.

Perennials in Pots

Sanguisorba menziesii,
blooming merrily in a pot

One thing I've discovered about perennials is that they sometimes do better in pots, especially when they're plants which prefer a moist situation.

Having grown several sanguisorba plantlets from seed, I was disappointed last summer when they produced nothing but a few leaves even though I'd sited them in a cooler, damper part of the back garden where I hoped they might flourish.


I had one plant remaining in it's original pot so we transferred this to a larger terracotta pot, together with a spare nicotiana and some bits of lobelia. The tobacco plant immediately rewarded us by blooming profusely for weeks.

Meanwhile, the sanguisorba had also clumped-up well, displaying pretty leaves even without producing flowers. So we decided to let them all over-winter in the pot and slowly come back to life again in spring.

Now, as you can see, it has sent up tall, strong stems of maroon blooms which catch the evening light beautifully - whilst those plants left in the border have yet to flower!

Lychnis coronaria alba
- under a shady ash tree

Lychnis also does well in containers and we have masses of the magenta-flowered plants in shady spots all over the garden.

You could call it very accommodating as its seedlings come up in all sorts of inhospitable areas and we tend to treat it as an annual, pulling up the unattractively shrivelled foliage at year-end.

This white variety makes a pleasant change and certainly illuminates our dark corners.

Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red'

Light and Dark

In previous posts I've talked about trying to create contrasts for dramatic effect in the garden.

'Husker Red' is a plant which looks handsome even before it bursts into bloom, whereupon its bright white flowers really stand out against the dark stems - an effect intensified by the bronzy-red foliage of a neighbouring physocarpus.

There's so much greenery in our beds by high summer that we have to make a conscious effort to break it up!

Dianthus deltoides,
the original Maiden Pink

White isn't the only flower colour to stand out in shady corners: these bright miniature pinks, Dianthus deltoides, do a great job of glowing in the dark too. 

They're a slightly paler magenta than the lychnis I mentioned above and their starry little blooms stand out well from dark green grass-like stems, making them useful edging plants under a shrub or hedgerow where there's only dappled sun for part of the day.

Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby'
with emerging hyssop

By the end of June, exotic sages and hyssops in our herb bed are beginning to fire off their tubular flowers of intense blue, pink or purple, designed to attract hummingbirds in countries like Mexico.

To complement these jewel-like hues, we planted a few bulbs of Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby' - a hardy hybrid from South Africa, which grows to at least a meter tall and has rich red blooms (larger than those of Gladiolus byzantinus).

Soon to come, on the other side of the garden, will be crocosmias of dazzling yellow and orange... at least our borders will be sunny, even if the weather isn't!

Hedgerow blackberries in bloom -
one advantage of a damp summer will be
loads of berries and other fruits to come!

Blue borders always look best in shade or at dusk