Into September now so here is a look at my Garden Journal 2019 for that month. I first decided to look at some of the many berries in our patch. We grow dozens of berry-bearing shrubs and trees. I wanted to feature some of our many Hypericum inodorum cultivars with their many different colours of berries.
“September sees the start of the berry season when our berrying trees and shrubs show more colour, from white to black and lemon to deep red. These were all planted to help birds survive, especially members of the thrush family both native and European visitors. Hypericum is the shrub that has the biggest range of coloured berries.”
I selected just 6 to photograph, but we grow a good dozen or so cultivars.
And so onto the next double page spread and garden wildlife takes centre stage, along with some seedheads discovered in our patch in September.
About the wildlife I wrote, “Our garden is always gifting us surprises, and this month our wildlife seems to be at the core of garden surprises. The first unexpected visitor was an unusual Pheasant, a male Black Pheasant, one of a very localised group centred around village of Plealey. This one is coming out of a moult so not as dramatic looking as usual. Much smaller but equally strange are these black and green, beautifully marked larvae. We had never seen them before but these were seen on the beans of our Runner Bean plants. We guessed they were Shield Bug larvae but had to look them up to identify them as Green Shield Bug larvae.”
We also spotted an unidentified fly and a hoverfly.
I then shared a set of my sketches of seedheads found in our garden. I used Japanese Brush Pens to paint the Commelinas and pencil crayons for the poppy seedheads.
Next I shared some of the garden tasks we got up to in September. I wrote, “Here are a few of the garden jobs we have carried out in September. We continued collecting seed, we painted our metal garden furniture and potted up a fern, Osmunda regalis which needs moisture. We planted it in a pot with a reservoir in its base. We even found time to create a new garden feature, a rope swag for roses and clematis. We also put together a selection of plants together on our sales table.”
I then went on to share how we made the rose swag, “The new Rose Swag allowed us to treat ourselves to visiting some nearby nurseries, where we bought roses and clematis and a whole lot more of course. Creating this feature meant banging deeply into the ground tall 3 inch diameter rustic poles eight feet apart and then swagging the rope from one to another. We planted a rose and a clematis up each pole.”
Rosa ‘James Galway’
Clematis ‘Blue Angel’ Rosa ‘Wollerton Old Hall’
Over to the next double page spread and clematis take centre stage. I wrote, “We returned from our nursery visits with more clematis than we needed but soon found homes for them all! If I list the roses and clematis on the swag, I will list them starting on the right end of the border and go left wards.”
Rosa ‘Bobby James’ with Clematis tangutica ‘My Angel’
Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’ with Clematis viticella ‘Queen Mother’
Rosa ‘Wollerton Old Hall’ with Clematis ‘Blue Angel’
Rosa ‘James Galway’ with C. vit. ‘Venosa Violacea’ plus C. ‘Romantika’
Rosa ‘Paul’s Scarlet Climber’ with C. florida ‘Pistachio’
The newest additions to our ever growing Clematis collection. We must try to list all the clematis we have one day and see just how many we grow!
From flowering climbers I then moved on to plants specifically grown for their interesting foliage and I wrote, “I have featured Persicaria before and tended to focus on all the different coloured poker flowers of Persicaria amplexicaulis cultivars. So for a change I went out into the garden to photograph those different Persicarias we grow for their foliage.”
Because I am currently writing a new talk for gardeners I decided to feature some of the many plants we grow specially for their interesting foliage. I wrote, “It is easy to comment on flowers and their colours when writing about gardens at the expense of foliage. Foliage is the unsung hero of our gardens and deserves more recognition. I am going to title my talk ‘Foliage – the unsung hero of our gardens.’ “
The photos below are of a small selection of the many foliage plants we enjoy.
So that is my September journal entries. I shall be back at the end of October.
greenbenchramblings 