The perfect summer garden scene: Lupins and Foxgloves

It is all a bit thrown together, but boy does the colour work.  Im looking at you orange poppy, Im not sure how you snuck in here but you really add a little something

Looking at this scene now warms my chilly bones as the rain lashes down as we experience beautiful weather here in England this August.  Weren’t my Lupins and Foxgloves looking lovely in May time?  I put in a lot of effort and was rewarded with a dazzling display.  Or not.  These are not my Lupins, or my garden either for that matter.  Some obliging soul decided to cultivate an impressive set of blooms in their front garden on my route home so I had the pleasure of them twice a day for a few short weeks.  The only thing I can take credit for was parking up and brazenly taking pictures of a random front garden while feeling many sets of eyes burning into my back.  I just hope the owner wasn’t peeping at me through the curtains.

Unfortunately the purple Lupin is going over but you can still see how they
combine so well here

I wanted to share this particular front garden, as to use a phrase I am rather fond of; it was a riot of colour.  It appeals to me because although the Lupins and Foxgloves appear like they have just exploded haphazardly into the air, the colour has a weirdly sophisticated level of co-ordination.  All the Lupins and foxgloves vary between three similar shades of pink and purple, which isn’t anything particularly noteworthy.  But see that rose on the end?  It’s the exact same shade of pink as one of the Lupins.  I couldn’t do that even if I plucked off a Lupin head and took it off with me to buy the rose.  The highlight for me though is the one solitary burning orange poppy right in the middle, unwittingly perhaps providing the perfect contrast.  It creates a perfect colour story.  I wonder if the owner actually planned this, although judging by the placement of the Lupins, I suspect not.

An overly heavy Foxglove on the lean and furry seed heads, what more can you ask for?

On what was a perfect early summers day this little garden was a visual delight, not just for colour but also structure.  Both foxgloves and Lupins are put together in such a pleasing way.  I can’t see foxgloves without thinking of octopus suckers, which may not be the most sophisticated of comparisons but I can’t help that (going off in a random direction here, If you google 'are octopus suckers edible' the first result is 'how to peel an octopus'.  I am officially horrified).  There was a lot of height, the foxgloves towered well above me and it is only a very small garden.  Now the season has moved on this garden has become quite flat and comparatively uninteresting.  I have never grown either, but I do have a hankering now to break open the packet of orange poppy seeds I have had for a few years and suspect are duff to try and get an orange poppy of my very own to plant randomly somewhere in the garden.

The sky was actually this blue, oh how I miss the sun!  A couple of fine specimens

A few snaps of intense colour: Clematis William Kennett

I am not about to launch into a vast wordy description of this Clematis as its’ defining feature in my opinion is it’s colour and with the best will in the world, pictures will describe that much better than I can.  A fairly new Clematis in our collection, ‘William Kennett’ is as described in most places mid mauve-blue with star shaped sepals.  But it is so much more than that simple description suggests.  In dimming lights the flowers literally glow, although in real life the colour is much bluer than the photos suggest but I have not fiddled the saturation levels at all.  In my opinion it is very worthy of the ‘queen of clematis’ claim I discovered on the label having wedged my head through a wall of runner beans laced with spiders webs to read the variety.  Definitely got web in the hair.  Also side note, how can something be described as a ‘queen’ with a male name?

The growing habit of this variety is also rather novel.  Flowering almost exclusively at the top of the plant and fence in three distinct layers like a cake, it almost seems like its attempting to share it’s joyousness with next door, which is very unnecessary of it.  I paid for it and I expect exclusive viewing rights.  It would also have been good if it could have flowered about four inches lower for those of us who are somewhat vertically challenged and don’t wish to half climb the fence. The flowers’ intense colour fades in the sun and this results in a bleached ombre effect with very pale flowers on top graduating to dark ones tucked underneath.

I took a lot of photos because I was fascinated by how the colour showed up, but here is a small selection:

Plants I bought at Hampton Court

Here is a Koria hydrangea that does not have a clue what colour its meant to be, although I think its made rather a nice mixture

So onto the plants I bought at Hampton.  I have a thing about buying plants; it feels like cheating.  Somebody else has put all the hard work in and you just come along and bung it in a hole and job done.  I really like that stage where you spend three weeks staring at soil willing germination to happen, but of course you can’t grow everything from seed and annoyingly generally it’s the hybrids that are the most interesting.  So buy plants I did.

Hydrangea ‘Koria’- Saw it, bought it.  Or more specifically I managed to convince the mother to thereby helping ease the strain on my wallet.  Not that it took much to convince, those crimped edges did all the talking.  The only stumbling block was that we already have four hydrangeas to our names, but there is always room for one more.  Hell I would dig one up to make space for this baby.  The only problem is ‘Korias’ don’t come out until a couple of weeks after Hampton so the nursery had forced a couple out early otherwise I doubt anybody would have been buying, which is fine.  But theirs were blue, and ours started to come out pink, which again would be fine if we hadn’t bought into the concept of blue.  Im sure it can be persuaded to feel a bit more blue by changing the ph levels of the soil where we plant it, but whatever the nursery did to their show ones they did not do to ours which is annoying.  Now the mother has watered it with the stuff that makes hydrangeas blue it is completely colour confused.

Left: 'Fiona Coghill' It is the top bloom that got too heavy for its' own good but my clever angle has hid the sellotape
Right: Achillea Inca Gold

Leucanthemum xs. ‘Fiona Coghill’- I will admit I got a bit tight here.  I fell for ‘sunny side up’, but after confirming that it is a hybrid and I would have to buy the plant, which was huge and therefore pricey, my purse clamped shut and I went for the very similar but significantly cheaper ‘Fiona Coghill’.  The white flower heads are so ridiculously packed with petals that they weigh a tonne and one stem bowed under the pressure the moment I got it home.  It is now back to form and wearing a sellotape splint for support.  Im thinking I should just have just thrown caution to the wind and splurged on ‘sunny side up’ as I am in the process of eyeing up buying one online.

Thats quite the density of petals

Achillea ‘Inca Gold’- I have a thing for grass at the moment and a desire to turn the front garden into some kind of American Prairie.  There was an abundance of Achillea at Hampton in displays and while clearly not a grass it fits that concept in my mind, like colourful cow parsley.  I was eyeing up a salmon shade but opted for this gold in the end.

Scabius 'Black Night' although clearly dark burgundy red

Scabius 'Black Night'- Now herein lies the problem with spontaneous purchasing.  This is an annual and therefore I did not need to bother purchasing the plant, but I obviously did not realise this at the time.  Luckily I bought it as part of a deal and have had the enjoyment of it this summer but I am watching it like a hawk to see when it sets seed so I can collect it and make the most of my money.  Lovely and black, with white to very pale pink stamens, these remind me of a confectionary but I can't for the life of me remember what they are called. 

My two favourite new plants- these are soft soft soft!

Lagurus ovatus 'Hare’s Tails' and 'Bunny Tails'- Which are basically the same plant but in little and large forms.  I saw these while hunting for two plants to make up four to take advantage of a deal and fell in love.  So soft and whimsical these appeal to the child in me who just wants to touch, and also fits in with my 'prairie' concept.  I find myself having a feel whenever I walk past.  When its been heavily raining the heads absorb the water like sponges and drop all sodden and heavy.  Again annuals so will be collecting the seed.  Apparently these happily self-seed, but they wont be doing that on my soil so Im taking backups.

Clematis- I couldn't go to Hampton and not buy another couple of Clematis.  We bought ‘Sieboldii’ which we also bought at Hampton last time.  Why buy it again you may ask?  Well because when it flowered it turned out not to be that variety at all and is instead ‘Florida Alba Plena’ and I only know this because I spotted the same thing labelled on a Clematis stand.  As much as we like it, we do rather like Sieboldii with its’ dark centres on white so second time lucky hopefully.  We also bought 'Gravetye Beauty' for literally no other reason than we have walked round somewhere called Gravetye Manor several times.  Red, and flowering like upside down tulips Im sure it is also lovely.

Left: the Sphaerocephalon balls that even im getting a bit sick of seeing
Right: The clematis labels as the plants essentially look like any flowerless clematis

Sphaerocephalon- Yes I also bought my own set of uncontrollable balls and yes, they were a nightmare to carry round but luckily I bought them right at the end.  I was tempted by the offer for 50 bulbs for a special price, but then reason kicked in and I thought a. where on earth would I find room for 50 bulbs, especially with all my Gladiolus bulbs, and b. I would only plant about ten before becoming knackered and giving up.  So instead I bought a few bulbs in a pot already flowering, even though it goes against my natural inclination towards economy.  Sometimes you have to live life on the edge.

What did I buy at Hampton Court?

Red Mohican flower heads, I do love it when a plant name actually matches its' appearance

My purse was crying but my bags were groaning.  For the sake of length Im going to split this into two parts: plants, and things that will become plants.  Lets start with things that will become plants shall we?

Aquilegia ‘Pom-poms’- It took me about twelve seconds to decide to buy these seeds, and yet I hate Aquilegia.  They are just so damn virile.  I have spent much of the last two years trying to halt the spread across the garden by the last batch the mother bought.  Yet when I saw these featured on Gardeners World a few months ago I knew in my heart any attempt to resist their frilly charms would be futile.  Luckily they grow very well in the dark spot in the garden where everything else objects to being put.

Sweet Peas- I was very disappointed at the sweet pea fair on offer this year, I could only find one seller: Eagle Sweet Peas, which is perfectly fine but I was hoping to try something new.  Although tempting to buy a great big variety pack full of varieties I don’t want, I decided to go expensive and be selective, choosing just two varieties: Leominster Boy which is a salmon orange, and Charlies Angel; a pretty pale blue.  I plan to buy more online at some point and will probably end up with a terrible combination of colours as I put them together myself.  Oh well.

The beautifully coloured 'Indian Summer' graduating from red to light purple at the bottom.  The Gladiolus look here much how I felt at the time: droopy

Judging by the very skewed nature of this photo I was on the verge of passing out from either heat or the thrill of the purchase, but it does show four of the varieties I bought: Aftershock- a very vivid pink and white, Chit Chat- splodges of a very blue pink on white, Magma- an unsurprisingly bright red and Green Star- odd I know but it works for me 

Gladiolus- Oh gladiolus.  I went a bit overboard here but in my defence they are my favourite cut flower.  Despite having still to get a single flower on the ones I bought this year, the wrong soil and nowhere to plant them, I went and bought forty bulbs.  Yes forty, because apparently im planning on opening a fresh flower shop next year and will need an endless supply.  Thing is I saw ‘Indian Summer’ in the display, knew I wouldn’t be leaving without any and there was an offer on for forty bulbs so just thought screw it; lets just buy the whole stand.  So buy the whole stand I did.  I didn’t buy forty Indian Summer bulbs because that really would have been overkill, instead plumping for a mix of varieties with Indian Summer, Aftershock, Chit Chat, Magma, Green Star and Black Star. In effect all I have really bought is a hell of a lot of work as I will have to dig up most of the lawn and then spend three weeks digging trenches.

Three Red Mohican Bulbs, looking remarkably like rather crusty garlic gloves

 Alliums- As I have mentioned on here before, round things appeal greatly to me, round things suspended high up on sticks even more.  Therefore I am a great lover of an Allium.  I set out to increase their numbers in my garden but had no particular variety in mind.  Luckily the stands are comparable to a pick and mix sweet stand.  It does annoy me when they show bulbs on the stands that they are not actually selling, such as ‘ping pong’ which I immediately wanted but was denied.  Not so the case with Red Mohican which are as the name suggests red and do actually have little hair dos, like a thousand pins sticking upright out of a cushion.  It was love at first sight.  Less so for the ‘Rosenbachianum’ and ‘White Giant’ Bulbs that snuck in during that rather spendy moment when I was ordering a thousand gladiolus bulbs.  On top of forty another six didn’t seem like much of a stretch.  Thankfully the lady who sold them to me wrote on the packets what they were otherwise I would just have two bags of rather large unidentifiable garlic.

Three 'White Giant' bulbs, I know this because the bulbs are huge, and luckily the bag is labelled