yarrow2

July in the garden!!

I dug up old orange lillies in March- I think they're 'Enchantment' can't remember - and put some in a pot.  The buds are enormous this year compared to their usual size and the first flower is also enormous.   I'm not sure how the stalks are going to cope if they all start flowering soon as there are 3-4 buds on the top of each stem.  The reason for this has to be (?) that the garden spot they were in was somehow hampering their growth and it's only when I put them in the pots with compost and leafmould that they have doubled in size. (Or maybe it's just the continual rain that's prompted this unexpected growth).  Sorry to say I've never been over-fond of them and put them in the wildflower pot corner so that I wouldn't have to look at them too much.  But - they are having their revenge and begging to be noticed now.

PS; gardenfanatic and all - your gardens look fantastic.  Great photos and fabulous to see.

Identify these anyone?

I've had to really brighten this photo and enlarge it so you can see these things.  They are holding gatherings on my crocosmia leaves.

They look and behave like tiny tiny very fast moving caterpillars, are black and the only thing I can compare them in size to are chocolate vermicelli that people sprinkle on cake icing.  Each one is about 10mm in size.  In this photo they are grouped on the leaf in about a one inch square.

Anyone know what they are?  I brushed them off with my hand - but should more groups of them appear - are they considered foe or ought they to be left to go forth and prosper? 

Aruncus

Dovefromabove et al:  Oops!  I'm suspecting there's more than my original Aruncus growing together here.  The original one from last year looked like Aruncus in that it had the tall Astilbe-like cream coloured flower.  But - the stems which I said above seemed to have gone brown and brittle have now flowered - and don't look like my Aruncus.  But the pale green fleshier non-flowered stalks look Aruncus shape.  Do I have two different plants growing together here or has my Aruncus morphed into something else?

 Looks like two different plants to me.  Can anyone identify?  Looks like one is growing through the other.

Plant ID

fotofit:  big thanks for letting us see the Scarlet Flax.  My mistake was just having 2 or 3 together with my first sowing which are about a foot tall now - no flowers yet. But I sowed half a packet of seeds in with a small wildflower bed so am hoping they will be better supported in amongst a big bunch of things growing at the same time.  The wilds were sowed late so are all only about 4" at the moment.  In Scotland I time things at least 4-6 weeks behind south of the border so will probably only see something worthwhile in about a month or more.  Thanks for that and look forward to seeing a photo of yours on a sunny day.  I've read they're stunning in good sunshine.

Lavender from seed help!

Mine were from a packet of bought seed as well but I'd like to have a go with cuttings. 

WILDLIFE PICTURES

They're not the most welcomed birds in a garden but we've had a family of magpies around the past couple of months and they've been interesting (and noisy) to watch. I haven't been able to get a photo of all of them together, think there are parents and 3 or 4 young.  The photo below was taken of a parent and 2 young last week when all were happy.

 Then a couple of days ago when I was sitting in the garden there was a terrible screeching and screaming from a next door garden  - a neighbouring cat had pounced on the young ones.  One was so desperate to escape that it literally tore itself through the trellis into my garden where it has been hiding out under shrubs ever since.  I'm keeping my distance from it as it is so very shaky - but now it has started to come to the ground feeder and I'm hoping it will recover enough to eventually fly over the fence and back to wherever its nearby home is.   It's face around the eyes is scarred, long back tail-feathers (whatever you call the long ones) tattered or missing and it has various scars under the wings on both sides which you can only see when it ruffles it's feathers/wings.  It's so sad - but hopefully it will pick up again and join the rest of the family.

Plant ID

Gracie:  lovely photos of beautiful plants.  I hope you manage to get them.

fotofit:  You've mentioned you are growing Scarlet Flax - Linum.  I've sowed some seeds this year for the first time and am pretty sure it's not going well.  I have seedlings at various stages around the garden but the ones sown earliest are about a foot tall and really spindly and delicate.  The wind and rain has played havock with them and I have few left standing.  How are yours?  I don't know what to expect of them i.e. how they grow on from the spindly stage - or maybe I ought to be doing something to encourage better growth.  Any tips, photos?  I'm suspecting that a windy, wet Scottish garden is the wrong environment for them! 

Lavender from seed help!

Hi Gloucestergirl13:  I sowed lavender 'Provence Blue' in May last year in little pots only in multi-p compost and left outside at the back door.  By August they were 2-3" high.  I think they could have done better if I hadn't just ignored them and left them - or if I had bothered to put them in a gritty compost.  Not sure.

However, they stood outside here in Scotland all winter.  Here they are in March this year.

 At the end of March I potted the 2 bushier seedlings into a large pot with half multi-p compost and leafmould and loads of grit.  Here they are today 30th June.

I've planted the other little stragglier ones straight into the garden with a lot of grit underneath and they are coming on well as well.

Bearing in mind they've been outside as seedlings since last Autumn in some pretty low temperatures, a lot of rain and wind and very little warm sunshine, they've come up much better than I expected.

If I can do it with little experience and in Scottish conditions - I'm sure you will do really well and even better with yours.

Gardeners World - not back for 4 weeks!

So often this country is referred to as 'a nation of gardeners' and there's many an article alluding to the massive growth of the 'gardening industry' in the UK over the past 15 years or so.  One of the reasons I single out Gardener's World as more traditional to watch and enjoy is that the presenters aren't trying to introduce you to or  entice you to buy a £3,000 arty twisted metal bench, or a £10,000 sperical sculpture or something.  All these things have their place of course and I'm sure if I had a large garden and loads of money to spare for pleasure, then I'd likely be interested in some of these things.  But Gardener's World sticks to gardening, is completely relaxing to watch and doesn't appear to be commercially/sponsor driven.  I don't know if this is anything to do with the fact it's the Beeb, but I wonder if the production budgets and time-allocation suffers because of no obvious sponsor funding.  Maybe it is sponsored - I don't know anything about who funds the programme.  Very little survives these days without heavy corporate or commercial input but I'd bet that if some huge corporation felt they would gain from exposure via the programme, then you'd get an hour once a week with little problem.  Does the Beeb remain advertising/sponsor free still?

If there was a trough of financial investment from some credible horticulture source, (or some funding source) a much expanded Gardener's World programme would be ideally placed to be both unique and massively popular.  Monty Don's gardens around the world programmes, the programme of a year at Carol Klein's Cottage - were excellently produced programmes with huge appeal.  Gardener's World has quality in it's current presenters and the Beeb ought to be -  (hate this phrase but I'm going to use it) - gagging for a longer programme.  Maybe the presenters have filled diaries of other personal and commercial commitments of course.  BUT - if they increased the programme to one hour, tweeked the content a little to really show off the talents and knowledge of the presenters who really are second to none when seen on their individual projects - it ought to be one of the number 1 rated programmes for popularity.

But - there's something missing that we're not quite grasping in this.  There has to be a reason why it's kept to 30 minutes and why it is so easily cast aside when more audience preferred (apparently) type programmes are shown.  Whilst we think gardening is on the up and up - maybe viewing figures reflect the opposite? What's the story BBC?  I wonder if it's the kind of programme the cable channels are interested in. 

Beats me.  There's a black hole in the understanding of only 30 minutes for a niche programme which ought to be an absolute winner for an hour's programming at least a week.  Two programmes a week even better - and even if it were in the Winter months when surely it could have a good regular cheer everybody up spot when there is so much dark nights depressing Americana and drivel on tv.

Mm!

Aruncus

One of the flower stalks.  Maybe it's meant to be like this?  Some of the others have dried up and are really brittle.

Can anyone identify?

Zaluzianskya 'Orange Eye'

Can any confirm identification please?

Skimmia japonica 'Thereza'

Fear of messing with old roses

Ice-cream Penstemons - 'Melting Candy'

Geraniums (not Pelargoniums)

Identify bug?

Identify these anyone?

Aruncus

Identify plant

Hydrangea macrophylla

Geum rivale 'Leonard's Variety'

Cabbage 'Greyhound'

Cistus Snowfire