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

July

"We all leave traces of ourselves behind
and they remain,
like a strand of wool on a thorn."

- Monty Don

A few torrential downpours later, the grass is green once more

It's certainly proving to be a summer of extreme weather: the earlier heatwave ended in violent storms but all that extra water soon revived our plants and I found myself happily digging holes to plant out the rest of this year's seedlings - not something I'd normally recommend in July!

An attractive corner for a snooze

Hydrangeas thrive in damp places and the one in these pictures is now in its third year, rewarding us with a host of exquisite blooms which start out pure white and gradually turn pink with age.

It's the first of three types of Hydrangea paniculata, planted in the shadow of a high wall, which comes into flower in July - living up to its name 'Early Sensation'.

All of these tend to suffer from yellow leaves as they're putting up with heavy chalk soil, so we need to dose them with a solution of chelated iron (like Sequestrine) as soon as the first leaves appear. This normally restores their greenery in a few days, although a follow-up dose is sometimes required later on.

Our gravelled courtyard was awash with water each time it rained but fortunately the underlying chalk soon soaked it up like a sponge, helping to keep shrubs and trees - like the young olive here -  well hydrated during the many hot days to come.

Pots, though, still have to be watered regularly and it's important to do this with a watering can rather than a hose: not only is this gentler on plants but it allows you to gauge exactly how much you're giving each pot. Sprinkling with a hose can have a surprisingly superficial effect - just stick your finger in the soil afterwards to see how far that dampness has actually penetrated!

Lavenders and Verbena bonariensis
growing out of chalk and gravel

Every year we say we're going to cut down on the number of pots we have to keep watering - and every year we still end up with numerous containers, although some of our woody herbs are now planted directly into the chalk.

Shaping Lavender

Christina loves her lavenders, particularly when it comes to cutting them back after flowering ...

This is a job she relishes (using battery-fired shears or clippers these days) as the warm climate allows for them to be hard pruned to a nice tight sphere and there's little fear of them not being able to re-sprout from old wood.

If we leave their flower heads too long, they will easily seed themselves in the surrounding gravel.

Rosemary officinalis -
nearly as good as yew!

And Rosemary

This little column of rosemary has been grown from a cutting we made a couple of years ago.

It was taken from a sturdy bush we happened to walk past one day, notable for its dense habit and resinous leaves - great if you want to distil essential oil but it can make your hands very sticky.

Christina trims it to shape once or twice a year and it has now reached a full meter in height.

Lavender flowering freely along the driveway, with
remaining heads of Romneya coulteri on the right

Insects of all shapes and hues come to visit in July; the hotter it gets, the more varied and exotic they tend to be.

Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo)

The so-called 'beautiful demoiselle' is decidedly the most eye-catching of the damselflies that we find around here.

This vivid metallic blue-green denotes the male of the species, with the female being a less notable dark brown - yes, it was ever thus!

Whilst they haven't actually come into our garden, we do spot them along nearby water courses.

Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius)

Rather confusingly, the butterfly known as the Scarce Swallowtail is actually quite widespread in central and southern Europe.

Its main foodplants are blackthorn and cherry, both of which grow wild in these parts, and it's attracted to the flowers of Verbena bonariensis, buddleia and hydrangea in our garden (as seen here).

The other Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) is darker, with a short tail, and much less common. But both species are undeniably handsome, adding a welcome bit of decoration to our flowers.

Echinacea purpurea - good for bees, hoverflies
and elegant white spiders (Misumena vatia)

Nerine oleander - its flowers can be
picked but all parts are poisonous!

Talking of things exotic, our oleanders have been blooming profusely for the past month, none more so than this pink one which was a cheap supermarket purchase last year.

Luckily we had a mild winter and all three oleanders came through unscathed even though we didn't bother to protect them.  (Why go to the trouble of wrapping them up when fresh plants are relatively inexpensive?)

We did feed them with a bit of home-made seaweed juice earlier in the season, but this plant has done particularly well and I think it's probably a new, improved strain.

Despite the fact that it doesn't attract much insect-life, it does serve to remind us of happy holidays in Greece.

Nigella hispanica (from Chiltern Seeds)
Love-in-the-mist with an interesting twist

Colour Combinations

I've said before that too many blue flowers together can be tedious. Scattering touches of pink or white (echinacea, cosmos, achillea) can help to break them up in a soft, muted way.  Splashes of scarlet (geum) or orange (calendula) are even more striking and make blues and purples appear more intense.

Gentian blue Salvia patens with Calendula officinalis 'Indian Prince'
- both available from Chiltern Seeds

Salvia coccinea
the bi-coloured Texas Sage

Salvias have become an indispensible part of our summer borders as they provide fabulous blooms in a range of bright tones.

Many of the more colourful ones come from Mexico and are not always fully hardy in a severe winter, but you can always treat them as bedding plants and grow them afresh from seed in the spring.

This Salvia coccinea, for instance, was sown in March from seed gathered late last summer when we spotted it growing in a local park.

I was pleased that the pink and white flowers came true from seed (not always the case) and believe it's a variety called 'Coral Nymph', which can be invasive in certain climates. Here it has established very quickly so I'll keep an eye out!

Summer Reading

Being somewhat starved of English language books in our corner of France, I was pleased to come across a paperback by Monty Don at a recent brocante. 

It's called "The Road to Le Tholonet - A French Garden Journey" and I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in France and/or it's invaluable contribution to the history of horticulture.

I tended to think of Monty as a TV presenter first and gardener second, but this well-researched and entertaining assembly of meditations on gardens both vast and small, formal or avant-garde, has definitely made me think again!

In exploring the aesthetics and practicalities of gardening through the ages, he reveals as much about himself as he does of the French national character.

A cheerful Charentais courtyard garden

  

June

"The swallows are chattering

around the house.  All night

you sweat it out waiting for a breeze

to collapse you to sleep."

- Jo Shapcott

Fields and vines in early June, before the heatwave!

By the end of May it was becoming apparent that this had the makings of a hot summer, with several hay fields already cut and baled. Foxgloves and aquilegias were soon went over in our garden; heleniums were in full-flower by the middle of June.

Ripe for the picking

Still, it's been one of the best years we can remember for cherries - even birds and foxes would have enjoyed their fill without depriving the rest of us.

Our neighbour came by with his little grand-daughter one humid evening to present us with a bowl full of ripe red cerises that she had enthusiastically picked from their tree.

They looked so delicious that I put some on a plate to photograph with a few David Austin roses, culled before the rain and wind could come and ruin their perfection.

A jug of 'Shropshire Lad' roses

Flaming June

Although we've had a couple of rainstorms to provide much-needed moisture, the afternoon temperature has been steadily rising to 30'C - and beyond - which makes it hard to do more than a bit of dead-heading in the garden.

Now our rain-water butt is empty again and we hide indoors during the hottest part of the day, venturing out at sundown to fill watering cans and slake the thirst of our most vulnerable plants.

I still have seedlings waiting to be planted out, so these have been potted on and kept partly in the shade, getting watered twice a day and developing rather too quickly!

Oenothera speciosa 'Siskyou'
and Hummingbird Hawkmoth
with trapped proboscis

Hummingbird hawkmoths are frequent visitors to the garden, drawn by early flowers like aubretia and then to the wide blooms of evening primrose which beckon invitingly.

This variety 'Siskyou' is a small rockery plant we found at Beth Chatto's in England, recommended for well-drained soil in full sun, and it's been flowering profusely for the past month.

On a couple of occasions I've had to rescue the poor moths when their proboscis apparently gets stuck inside the pistil, as shown in this photo, and they almost exhaust themselves trying to escape.

I'm not sure if it's the sticky nectar which traps them so firmly but it does give me the opportunity to snatch a photograph when they pause their desperate fluttering.  Happily they fly off immediately once extricated!

Anchusa azurea 'Dropmore'
with hovering dragonfly

Another popular plant for visiting insects is anchusa, whose bright blue flowers attract butterflies like the swallowtail or, occasionally, a passing dragonfly like this one.

These are very welcome in the garden as they devour mosquitoes, amongst other things, and often arrive with damselflies when our plants have enjoyed a good drench from the watering system. 

By midday the borders are positively dancing with butterflies, mainly drawn to the twenty or so lavenders in full bloom.

Echium vulgare
- plenty of flowers to keep the
insects happy

Plant supports

Back in April Christina used our neighbour's willow offcuts to make some useful supports for taller plants - like this echium which has a habit of spreadeagling over its neighbours.

These willow wands were bright yellow when we first stuck them in the ground but have since matured to a less eye-catching brown.

She also put one around our peony, which was similarly successful in helping the plant to stay upright - although it didn't help the plant to flower, maybe because we'd carefully mulched it in spring and covered up too much of the crown which needs to be kept exposed.

Either that, or there was a dry spell at the point when buds should have been forming.

Delphinium consolida
- a colourful trio of larkspurs

Larkspur

Like foxgloves and pinks, this is one cottage-garden favourite that I wouldn't be without because it's so adaptable and easy to grow in this climate. Also, by and large, it doesn't require any staking.

By the end of June I'll have collected seed from all three colours, to be distributed in various corners of the garden in autumn.

It's hard to predict exactly where they'll come up of course, which is part of the fun, but what are the chances of finding pink, white and blue growing together in what looks like a single plant?

Striped stink bugs or
Graphosoma lineatum

More insects ...

Umbellifers like this giant hogweed (Heracleum sphondyleum) have been growing tall along the waysides and had already set seed by the beginning of June.

Every season we come across unusual creatures which we've never really noticed before: these striped stink bugs were observed partying atop the seed heads and made an interesting pattern for the camera.

A fat grasshopper hanging out on a Coreopsis flower

and feathered friends!

Readers of previous blogs this year may have wondered what happened to the eight cygnets which hatched out beside our neighbour's lake in early May ...

Swans mingling happily with ducks and goats

Although the whole family disappeared upriver for a while, they've now started spending time beside Robert's lake once more - douobtless tempted by the fact that he feeds stale bread to his ducks every morning!

All eight cygnets appear to be thriving and, oddly enough, the adults seem less territorial than before, calmly sharing their turf with ducks and goats.

Robert says that he's even observed a swan nibbling the wool of one of his rare-breed sheep as if it's helping to remove parasites - odd indeed!

Catanache caerulea - a sun worshipper
which seeds itself over our gravelled driveway

Catanache

This is a plant which apparently relishes lots of heat and sun, although its blue petals close up during the hottest part of the day, hiding behind papery bracts that reflect - and deflect - the strong light. A clever strategy.

Their petals look a darker blue-mauve when closed, as in this picture, but by morning they open up again, a clear cerulean blue.

Scabious atropurpurea 'Fata Morgana'
available from Chiltern Seeds

By way of contrast to all those azure flowers in our garden, I've started looking for plants with orange or apricot tinted blooms.  Scabious is easy to grow in our chalky soil, so I picked this tall variety which stands out well against the larkspur behind.

Unfortunately, its leaves are rather scappy and call out to be camouflaged by other plants which will grow to at least 80cm.  Larkspur, too, looks very dishevelled after a week in the baking sun and many will have to be pulled up even though there are still a few flowers to come.

A cool spot for late afternoon

Good at gliding, but can they fly ... ?

Mid May

"Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!

Hour prophetic - hour resuming the past!"

Walt Whitman - Song at Sunset

A welcome for the new French president perhaps ...?

I've departed from my usual gardening quote for two reasons: one strirred by the accidentally patriotic image I came across amidst all our brightly flowering dianthus (yes, we hope it's an 'hour prophetic' this time!), and the other being that 'splendor' of sunny evenings, when stems and flowers are highlighted in a golden wash, irresistible to the camera.

Garden pictures

White Armeria maritima providing
a foil for pink dianthus

White and blue flowers stand out well in late afternoon but it's important to use the right camera setting in order to expose for subtly shaded petals and not for those shadows behind, which become less distracting when they appear darker.

Sunlight can be so intense here that plants simply merge into one another in the middle part of the day - a particular problem when your garden is bursting with flowers, all jostling for pole position!

The bright blooms of geum, geranium and dianthus are spread throughout our cottage-style bedding and they each come to prominence at different times of day, making it important to stroll around and appreciate a new picture every few hours.

After their first outing on the water, maman
encourages them back to their nesting site

Swan song

In between, it's also necessary to check on the progress of local wildlife, like the pair of swans I've featured in recent months.

They began nest-building beside Robert's lake in early March and we finally saw the female brooding on 24th March.

Her mate seemed to keep his distance most of the time, flying off every evening to spend his nights elsewhere... the cad!

After many visits to check on her progress, we were getting worried that she could well die of starvation before any of the eggs hatched.  Eventually, we got a late night email from Robert to say the babies were out and we should make haste to take pictures and videos.

By then it was May 3rd, yellow flags were out making a pretty picture beside the lake, and the male swan actually deigned to come and visit his new brood.

Eight cygnets paddling furiously in their mother's wake

But, sadly, that was the last we saw of them all!  According to Robert, the whole family disappeared upstream soon afterwards and we can only assume that papa swan had been off finding a new - and hopefully safer - abode for his chicks.

Foxgloves with blue aquilegia

Good companions

I think we must have at least half a dozen varieties of Digitalis purpurea on display now, although some of them have fared badly due to a sudden hot, dry spell which left them with tiny flowers.

I hate to see a plant in distress - if it's too late to help with water, best to cut it down! In the case of foxgloves you might be lucky and get more flower spikes if there's some decent rainfall.

Christina took similarly drastic action with some of the aquilegias which were producing masses of foliage earlier in the season. She chopped them back, flower stems and all, with the result that they came up with more blooms and less leaf second time around!

Geranium 'Azure Rush'

We also have at least ten types of cranesbill geraniums in various parts of the garden, many of the taller varieties combining well with climbing roses.

Some are better in part-shade, like this pretty and prolific flowering 'Azure Rush' which makes excellent ground-cover under a cistus bush.

Its blooms are very similar to those of the popular 'Rozanne' but it's more compact and lower growing.

Geum coccineum 'Borisii' with
Oedemera nobilis beetle

And where there's a preponderance of blue flowers, as in our garden, it's always a good idea to fleck the ocean with touches of yellow and orange.

Some people grow English marigolds like weeds, providing lots of zing amongst the greenery; in our soil we seem to have more luck with geums and I love this one called 'Borisii' which is floriferous without being rampant. Unlike some others...

I've just had to cut down several stems of Geum chiloense 'Mrs Bradshaw' because her scarlet blooms were in danger of eclipsing everything else! 

Evening primrose

Moving on to more pastel shades, I love the flowers of this evening primrose because they're so luminous and delicately painted inside.

I grew this one from seed found in a friend's garden but unfortunately the foliage is rather limp and weedy so it can easily collapse in heavy rain.

Better I think to cultivate the rockery version, Oenothera speciosa 'Siskyou', which has very similar big flowers but a more creeping habit. It thrives in moist, well-drained soil in full sun.

Evening light on terracotta, with Echeveria 'Perle von Nurnberg'
in foreground and a Primula auricula flowering behind

Combining subtlety of colour with architectural shape, it's hard to beat sedums and echeveria hybrids, like the one above given to us recently by friends.

After a visit to Beth Chatto's Essex garden last year, we were inspired to resurrect some of our old pots to plant up with a selection of succulents. They provide interest throughout the year and are easy to manage in a courtyard garden - not much weeding required!

Since coming here and taking regular walks in the countryside, I've come to appreciate just how many plant shapes are based on the dandelion principle.

Tragopogon porrifolius

Tragopogon

Perhaps the most stately of these roadside weeds is a plant commonly known as Salsify, originally planted as a root vegetable in central Europe.

Its beautiful flower head only opens in the morning and has also given it the name 'Purple Goat's Beard', although I think it's more of a two-toned pink myself.

There's also a yellow version which is more abundant in our verges.

Both strains have magnificent seedheads and deserve to be even more widespread.

Tragopogon pratensis - three stages of a single plant

Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga'

Shrubs
There's such an abundance of shrubs doing wonderful things in May that it's hard to pick out a favourite.

But every garden should have at least one member of the viburnum family and this was a cultivar I'd wanted to try for a long time.

We finally tracked down a small plant at a fair three years ago and it's now reaching maturity, 
about 1.5m tall and covered with exquisite lacecap blooms which later produce berries.

The only thing it lacks is scent and for that you need the early-flowering types like Viburnum carlesii.

Allium christophii a star emerging from its chrysalis

Alliums
It's taken a while to get alliums established in our garden and now they seem to be popping up everywhere.

Not so much in sunny open spaces, as you might expect, but in slightly shaded areas under shrubs.

Although we've tried a few different sorts, it's the 'Star of Persia' (Allium christophii) which is particularly at home in our soil, recklessly spreading its seed close to other established plants.

Allium christophii sharing the stage with yellow
evening primrose and blue geranium

As with many bulbs, it's interesting to watch the flower head emerging from its tight bud and acquiring its spherical shape.

Amazing that such complexity can be folded so neatly into a small space... it's true of all seeds, of course, but rather more spectacular to observe in an allium like this.

And those flowering 'stars' have a metallic sheen which reflect light and tempt one to take yet more photo's!

Baptisia australis

Baptisia
If you have trouble growing a flower that you're fond of, don't give up altogether but look around for another variety that might be more compatible with your soil or climate.

We managed to overcome the difficulty of raising lupins, which kept being eaten by snails, and turned to cultivating the perennial Baptisia australis instead.

Its blue pea-like flowers have given it the name 'False Indigo' and it's easily raised from seed.

These days you can get different coloured varieties, ranging from cream to yellow to apricot - very much like lupins really.

Our lettings cottage 'La Marée'
with magenta lychnis, blue larkspur and numerous pinks