Salvias

Now that we're into Summer the Salvias are starting to bloom.

I usually can't help myself when I see a different one and will buy it and worry about where to put it later.

I was on a quest to get Megan's Magic at one of the flower shows and thought I had succeeded. I had chosen a plant which was unlabeled, but close by to a display pot of Megan's Magic and looked to have similar leaves. The guy taking the money agreed it looked to be that one.

It has since flowered and quite obviously is a different Salvia. So far it has stayed smallish and I find it to be brittle. In real life the flowers are a richer colour and I wonder if it might be Magenta Magic.

Ahh  Salvia Semiatrata. This one is a favourite with its unusual pink calyx and bluish flower with deep blue lip. I read that it has a sprawling habit so it is surrounded with a metal stand to support the main part of the plant, and so far this has been very effective. A pretty plant best viewed up close.

Salvia Canariensis is a bit different with its woolly leaves. I wondered if this would make it through our winter frosts and it surprised me by being so hardy. It has grown fairly quickly and I'm not sure it will have enough room where I put it. Lambley's suggest it is not easy to propagate, but that won't stop me having a go, as I would be pretty happy to have more of this plant around the garden.

  

Salvia guaranitica is best out on its own where it can't invade other plants. We moved some soil a while back and now it is coming up in the vegie patch. Despite that it puts on a brilliant display, lots of stems of  lovely deep blue flowers

Poor Salvia Hot Lips. I bought this one in just a tube size and straight away planted it out. When I went to check one day the whole plant was gone, I couldn't find a trace of where it had even been. I'm assuming the rabbits were to blame even though they supposedly don't eat salvia. Some weeks later I was surprised to see some stems emerging from the ground in the area it had been planted. I found some mesh to protect it, and away it went. One tough little plant that is flowering for the first time.

This is another one I find to be invasive, Salvia Uliginosa. Very pretty sky blue flowers for months. Now that it has its own place away from everything, I'll have a job to get rid of it from original spot in the garden bed.

Pretty sure this one is Salvia Forskaohlei. I would grow this even if it didn't have the pretty flowers. The big leaves are interesting with their rough surface, and have looked good planted next to the water trough all year. It seeds lightly near to the parent plant so I seem to have just enough odd ones around. 

And happily I did find Megan's Magic not so long ago. It is growing and flowering very well already, so I'm pretty sure it will be a good performer for me.

A Couple More Daylilies

I just had to add some more daylily photos to show some different sizes. 

Have a look at this spider type, a good 9 inches across

and then this petite, barely 2 inch flower which is a sweet little thing.

I had to wait for this one to come out so I could put up the pic and as you can see by the droplets we're getting rain again!

This time I'm quite happy to see rain as I bumped one of the Philidelphus while mowing and even though I watered it immediately, the rain and cooler day will hopefully help it settle back in. It was a piece taken from the outside of the mother plant we had to remove 2 years ago to make way for a fence. It kind of struggled along last year, but this year started to grow some longer branches and is flowering. I'll be annoyed with myself if it keels over.
So far I've tipped out about 27mm. Some of the cuttings I put in of various plants are looking promising and they will benefit too. 

Every year I'm intrigued by the Allium ampeloprasum and its cover splitting and turning into a papery pointed cap.

I only became aware about 10 years ago that the bulbs are edible but I've yet to try them.
They are  always just there in summer, at the back of the border swaying in the wind.

We had a warm day yesterday which made my pretty yellow Asiatic lilies pop open in a hurry.
They look to have multiplied since last year.

The End Of Spring

The Gymea is flowering now, much to the delight of the New Holland Honeyeater and the bees I can see buzzing about. Of course this calls for another photo of it.

My Crambe can be hit and miss. It's a lovely thing, although this year I only managed one stem of flowers despite there being quite a few plants. Maybe I should try a bit of lime around it to see if that will help them along.

The Scabiosa Columbaria always looks great this time of the year. It sends up plenty of stems for weeks on end, putting on a lovely lavender show. When the weather warms up I can usually find butterflies visiting the flowers, and it's a nice flower to put in the vase.

More daylilies, all in a row. These are the ones I just mow around weekly and occasionally pull some grass out of. A very relaxing pastime is to stroll along  looking at the individual flowers and array of colours out there.

Other Bits

Here's a little grouping that pretty much designed itself. Creamy Sisyrinchium Striatum, bright pink Lavatera Silver Cup and lovely blue Centaurea Cyanus. All self sown from last years plants.

 Lilium Pink Perfection
have begun to come out, mixed in here with Feverfew

Any bare earth soon disappears. Lychnis, Poppies, Euphorbia, Iris & Foxgloves in the background.

Mostly Daylilies

This bearded iris is curious in the way it starts out like an ordinary iris, but as the days go on, flops down and looks for all the world like a Japanese iris.

I can't be sure, but I came up with Judy Mogil as its name after doing some googling. It has irregular light blue streaks and is very pretty both upright and flopped over.

I really wanted to use the same flower in both pics, but had to find another in the garden to properly show its form.

The daylilies are really starting to flower. This one has been putting on a beautiful show.

They have come forward in leaps and bounds from the old yellow ones I remember during my childhood.

I don't know any of their names unfortunately, but they're a good tough plant that doesn't seem to need any attention. In fact some of my plants are planted straight in the ground, no garden beds, I just mow around them.

Some are so perfectly formed and have thick petals as an added bonus. I have seen the petals used in salad and apparently some varieties are tastier than others. One day I'll sample one for fun.

The daylily below at the top left has a gold dust edge which is more apparent in sunshine. I tried to get a close up but nothing beats seeing things in real life.

In the last 7 years or so we have started to get visiting king parrots. Before that we had lots of crimson rosellas and a few of the shy eastern rosella, so the king parrots are still a novelty.
This is King Wally. The locals must feed him because he is very quiet and calls in now and then and not necessarily for food. We know it's him because he usually lands on the spouting and peers over the edge. The others usually feed in the trees and aren't curious like Wally. He called in this morning and was unperturbed at me taking his pic while he perched in the Melia

Sunny And Hot

After all the cool weather I knew we would have to get a hot day sooner or later, and today is it. 30 degrees, but then it's supposed to be cool again tomorrow. Certainly a funny old spring this year.

I called in to Kurinda Rose Nursery at Warragul to have a look. Everything has grown since I was there last and it was looking spectacular in full bloom.

Mum had asked Stan to graft one of the roses she had grown from seed some years ago, so when I mentioned that he generously gave me a potted plant of it. Although not registered he calls it "Memories of You" which I think is lovely. He showed me another of hers which doesn't open out so well.

I bought Lanes Moss while I was there and will get them both into the ground soon.

Blue flowers always catch my eye in gardens, so here are some of my flowers.
Iris Louisiana Sinfonietta, Nigella, Centaurea and Ixia.

My Japanese iris is flowering with lovely large showy blooms. I probably should have fed it because it doesn't have as many flowers this year. Still beautiful nonetheless.

And the Siberian iris is putting on a show too. This clump is lovely, but another clump has not one single flower on it.

A String of Cold Days

The weather has been really strange, cold and soggy. The rain started Tuesday afternoon and has been off and on ever since. I've tipped 79mm out of our gauge so far.

I had taken a couple of irises to another keen gardener, Margaret, on Tuesday, and of course came home with cuttings and plants from her extensive garden. Her garden is about 50 years old and has some beautiful things in it.

I wanted to get most of the plants she gave me into the ground, and by the time I had had enough, I looked like a drowned rat. Still, I think I have given it my best shot. They are well and truly watered in now.

A few years ago I had a couple of roses come up under the persimmon tree near the cocky cage. Both were  of a rambling sort with clusters of flowers that bloom in spring. One was light pink which I kept for a little while and eventually decided it wasn't worth the space. The other was a deep pink, or it might be described as magenta, and much prettier. It has been left to climb the tree and drape over the cocky cage. When the weather is right, it scents the air with a lovely perfume, although the individual flowers barely have any smell.

Some of the more delicate flowers such as the irises didn't stand up very well to all that rain, others like the foxgloves and linaria haven't been bothered by it. The dull day has made the greens quite vivid.

The White Roses

The white roses I have are all lovely and all different and worth a look.

White Cecile Brunner has a pretty lemon centre which fades as the flower opens. Perfumed and constant flowering with healthy foliage 

Souvenir de Philemon Cochet unfortunately sometimes gets brown petals in its flowers, but not this year. This year it is beautiful and the flowers are fairly large. My plant was grown from a cutting and has taken quite a few years to establish. Its a good five feet tall with typical tough healthy rugosa leaves.

Good old Iceberg, I wouldn't be without it. Responds well to a severe pruning and bounces back with flushes of lightly perfumed flowers, which are sometimes blush in the centre.

This rose came from a cemetery. I took a cutting which grew easily but I don't know its name. The bush smothers itself in lovely perfumed flowers just in the spring. These types of roses are best pruned in summer, so I give it a trim after it flowers ensuring more blooms next year.

The White Rose of York (Alba Semi Plena) is another once flowering rose. The single perfumed blooms and yellow stamens look lovely against the grey green foliage. It has just started to flower in my garden and will be superb in another week or so. This one I leave alone as it has lovely long hips to follow which last into winter. Just a tidy up of dead wood is all it needs.

Unusual, Different

Sometimes I find some oddities in the garden when I'm poking about.

Last March I found this nasturtium doing its very best to survive. I have N. Alaska growing nearby so I assume it originated from their seed. The poor thing only lived for about a week after I captured the pic.

And speaking of N.Alaska, I moved one to a new position only to discover as it grew that it must have been crossed with the trailing Nasturiums I also grow. So now I have a variegated trailing plant. I'm trying to root a piece in water so I can keep it going. Although this is a new plant for me, I see there are seeds available.

Just this week I found something similar happening in the Disporum clump with some stems having all white leaves

And then there's the extra bud shooting from the centre of my Tour de Malakoff rose

But back to the changes that happen when the warmer weather arrives, I always forget how much growth occurs in just a few short weeks so before and after shots are always a good record..

June 2013

Nov 2013

Irises

My Irises are blooming very well this year, with plenty of flowers on each plant.
With all that wind I'm amazed their brittle stems didn't snap off. 

Here is Mum's iris Beaumonde, registered back in 1985.
Its awards are : HC (1983), Merton Calvert Award (1984), AM (1985)

and her lovely unnamed one which grows vigorously in my garden, which Barry Blythe kindly sent me after she died.

I don't think I have ever bought an iris, I could always get some rhizomes from mum's collection and bring them down to my garden. They are such a spectacular flower and I can see why she liked to create new ones as a hobby.
 The only ones I can put a name to in this group are Cameo Wine at the bottom left, and (using google) the top left is possibly Love Is All Around.

The plain old fashioned purple one which flowers early, is one I haven't seen bloom this year. Maybe there are others I have forgotten too.

Lots of Colour

After all the very ordinary weather, we are set to have 2 or 3 decent days. It's so nice to wander in the garden with the sun out and just a gentle breeze. I can even smell the perfume of the flowers in the air for a change. Dianthus, rose and iris scents wafting about. By the time I've done the rounds Forget Me Not seeds are usually stuck to the bottom of my pants, or on my sleeves if I stopped to weed. I should be pulling them all out, now that they have finished.

The poor old echium fell over yet again and has been tied once more to its stake. My aim is for it to seed and get some babies popping up.

There's plenty of colour, and although not popular with everyone, I enjoy the vivid orange Californian poppies amongst my other blooms.

Perle D'or, Cecile Brunner and White Cecile Brunner are beginning their show

The irises I moved have grown enough to flower this year, and I see plenty of buds.

I remembered liking the deep colour of Congo Song, and thought perhaps this was that iris, but after searching for images decided mine has a better form, so I've no idea what it's name is.

Another pretty one, moved from mum's garden 

This is a new plant for me. I purchased it at the Melbourne Garden Show and I'm very impressed. It is Salvia Nemorosa Caradonna and probably came from Lambley's. The dark stems and purple flowers go lovely together. I'm hoping it will spread, or seed.

I can see some red poking through on the towering Gymea, so it won't be long til the flowers are out. I would say it is a good 30 years old and has turned into quite a large clump. Amazingly it stood up to the gales, although I imagine from now on it will be more vulnerable with the extra weight. The taller stem would be higher than our roof.

While the ground is moist, the Disporum Sessile Variegatum, the Corydalis ochroleuca, and the Hostas are looking lush in their sunny position surrounding the old bird bath and its succulents.