Friday 20th June 2014

Rosa 'Chevy Chase'

It is a great year for roses and there are 64 types of roses in the Garden House including R. 'Chevy Chase' a small compact climber with a good covering of light green foliage and small dark red clusters of flowers.

Rosa 'Rambling Rector'

Rosa 'Rambling Rector' is a rampant vigorous rambling rose that would cover a tree or pergola. It has small white scented flowers followed by red hips. Ramblers don't usually repeat flower and usually produce attractive hips.

Rosa 'Ghislaine de Feligonde'

This is a rambling rose that unusually will produce a second flush of flowers - it is fast growing with apricot flowers that fade to cream with a light musky scent. It is a good choice for covering an archway and is generally disease resistant.

Rosa 'James Galway'

Rosa 'James Galway' is a beautiful pink climber with double flowers with an old rose fragrance. The stems are virtually thornless; it flowers freely and repeat flowers and can grow up to 8'.

Rosa Glauca

Rosa Glauca is a vigorous deciduous medium sized shrub with a simple deep pink flowers and good foliage and looks like a wild rose. It prefers full sun.

Rosa 'Charles de Mills'

Rosa 'Charles de Mills' is a small upright shrub rose that grows up to 1.2m and has copious mid green foliage with very fragrant double crimson purple flowers.

Bridge recommends Peter Beales as a supplier of roses and the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses by Charles and Bridget Quest-Riton.

Activities in the garden this week:

• Potting up chillies and feeding and labeling them
• Weeding the veg plots and planting out chard and beetroot plants
• Planting out 'Black-eyed Susan' climbing plants with blue flox, planting out gaura
• Staking the ammi
• Weeding and sorting out herbaceous border
• Tidying up area around the pond
• Sorting out plants in cold frames and general dead heading

Friday 13th June 2014

Knifofia 'Moonstone'

The plant fair at the Garden House was a great success and we had some discussion about our new purchases and the fact that Vicky bought her first yellow plant a Knifofia. These plants are in the lily family and come from South Africa and don't have to be red. Good drainage is needed for these plants.

Activities in the garden this week:

• Staking corn flowers and some of the ammi
• Deadheading
• Taking out opium poppies and planting dahlias, sunflowers, salvia, nasturtium, antirrhinum
• Planing out runner beans
• Planting a black stemmed hydrangea and fern in large pot in front garden
• Planting more climbers

Some pictures from the garden:

Rosa Mme Hardy - a damask rose

Friday 6th June 2014

Hydrangea aspera 'Macrophylla'

We had some discussion about hydrangeas - they can be shrubs or climbers and flower from late spring to late autumn. They thrive in moist soil in a cool or semi shaded part of the garden and they are easy to grow from softwood or hardwood cuttings.They come in a number of habits and forms from mophead, lacecap, paniculata, oak-leaved and climbing and usually flower on current season's growth.
Hydrangea 'Annabelle' has profuse white flowers from July to Sept and grows to a height of 4-5ft
Hydrangea paniculata 'Phantom' has conical flowerheads that are creamy white and flushed with green and pink and grows to 4-5ft
Recommended book: Hydrangeas: A Gardener's Guide by Toni Lawson-Hall

We also looked at bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum') which is a very useful plant for the border.

Bronze fennel

Activities in the garden:

• Planting up pots and hanging baskets
• Planting sempervivums in chicken feeders
• Lots of weeding and getting the garden ready for the plant fair

The garden looked particularly beautiful for the plant fair on Saturday, after early rain the sun shone for the rest of the day and there was a profusion of wonderful plants to buy.

Paul's plants

Stanmer plants

Friday 30th May 2014

You just have time to consider doing the 'Chelsea chop' on your perennials. You can do this in a number of ways - either cut back the whole plant by about one third or only chop back one third of the plants leaving some to flower earlier. Doing this encourages bushier growth, can stop the plants from flopping and can also extend the flowering period. Sedum, rudbeckia, echinacea, helenium, nepeta, phlox, asters will all respond well to this technique.
You can also cut back geraniums after they have flowered and you may get a second flush of flowers but you do need to water and feed them well.
Book recommendation:

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques-Tracy DiSabato-Aust

Plant identification:

• Centranthus ruber 'Albus' - which is the white form of red valerian. It has sprays of small white flowers in late spring and summer
  
  

  

  Centranthus ruber 'Albus'
• Valeriana officinalis - or common valerian - this is a tall and airy plant with pinkish- white small flowers with a nice vanilla scent

  

  Valerian officinalis

  
  
• Dinathus deltoides or Maiden pink is an evergreen perennial and has a mat of green foliage with clusters of cerise or white flowers. It is happy in chalk soil and can be grown in gravel gardens or with other alpines

  

  Dianthus deltoides

• Geranium 'Southease celestial' a lovely clump forming geranium with lavender blue flowers

Geranium 'Southease celestial'

• Stipa gigantea -or Golden Oats is a striking evergreen grass, it has oat like flower heads in summer and can grow up to 6 feet. It likes well drained light soil and full sun

Activities in the garden this week

• pruning and cutting back the clematis armandii
• pruning the pittosporum
• planting up the cosmos
• planting up the big containers
• potting up the tomatoes

And clearing the pond starring Katy ....