Out now

Here's what's out in my garden this week.

James Gallway.  

This is a nice tough rose but can't decide if it is a climber or not - more a large bush that needs support.

It has lovely glossy leaves and seems to resist rust and blight and bugs pretty well.

The wrong poppy - this is a rogue red which comes up year after year - it has been pulled out, dug out and even poisoned!

I've decided to learn to love it.

The pretty little white thing flirting round it is called Bowmans Root (Gillenia Trifoliata).  Well worth having if you can find it.

 I love this iris.  it is just about starting in the garden after three years!  We dug it up from a B & B where some friends were staying - with permission!  hey had stunning borders absolutely choked with it.  My two little bits have struggled to get going in a north facing border (they do like to be sun-baked) but finally we are seeing some flowers.

It is an unusual one and could be Iris Spuria

Pretty common but no less nice for that and a real doer - this is masterwort (astrantia - probably major) - no idea what variety.

It will flower most of the summer.  Not spectacular but incredible if you get up close and personal.

The white is the beginnings of the False Goats Beard (Astilbe) just starting to come into flower another stalwart.

 The peony i have in a tub - thin it bneeds feeding as it only seems to manage two not huge flowers a year so far.  There again, when my sister gave it me about three years ago it was only a few inches high so its doing OK.

This is a sentimental plant as it is from my sis before she decamped to Canada and in memory of my mom and the red peony of her home.






 I can never get a photo of this odd little primula to do it justice. I think it is the capitata part of the primula family.  it starts out covered in white farina (looks like it is covered in talcum powder) so it looks very odd, but then it progresses to this. 

This is a really tough sweety - why oh why didn't I note its name.  It is a very small white shrub a friend bought me in a pot last summer.  I tucked it into a corner before we left for the winter not really expecting it to survive.  When I was home in December it still had a few flowers on it and as soon as it could get going this year it is off.  it is another one where you have to really look at it to appreciate it.  The pretty little white flowers have an even prettier centre.

Let me know if you know what it is.






I don't do any good with roses - mine are always scabby with rust and covered in greenfly and more bald than leafy and the flowers get smaller and smaller and less and less every year.  The exception to this were the two beautiful and bountiful Blush noisettes that I had on the patio.  These are the two that we have had to dig up for the forthcoming conservatory.

Right now it looks as if the younger of the two might have survived the move but the other one has given up the ghost.  If one makes it through to next summer I will buy another to replace the dead one.  Fingers crossed.

I suppose roses should be regarded as fairly high maintenance; they need spraying several times a year and feeding often and I never seem 'to get round to it'.  Maybe now I have a gardener every couple of weeks?????