THE WEATHER -

Warm and sunny weather to begin the month, becoming very hot towards the end of the second week. By the 17th however, it began to cool down, and a northerly wind on the 18th made it feel quite chilly in the shade. Heavy showers on the 19th, with sunny intervals, but not really enough rain to do any good in the garden! That was rectified by the 21st and onwards though, when heavy and prolonged showers on most days until the end of the month watered the garden properly! Maximum temperature 29°C (86°F). Minimum temperature 7°C (45°F).

There are many Clematis in flower now in the garden, but this one, called "Vyvyan Pennell" is one of my favourites. It has large double purple flowers, and later on it will produce another crop of single flowers, pehaps with the odd double one here and there. I remember seeing this growing in someone's garden years ago, and remembering its name. I vowed to own one when I had my own garden, and now I have it!!

Alliums are great plants to grow for flower arranging. This one is called Allium christophii, and has very large heads of purple star-shaped flowers. You can use these whilst in flower, or wait a while for them to go to seed, when the heads can be dried off and used in arrangements. They look good either natural, or sprayed whatever colour you like!

A spectacular plant in flower at the moment is Cardiocrinum giganteum. It is a lily with towering spikes of huge white pendent flowers, which smell divine! The leaves of this plant are quite unusual for a lily. Most Lilies have narrow, linear leaves, but this one has large shiny green heart-shaped leaves, reminiscent of a Hosta. The bulb takes several years to produce a flower, and is monocarpic, which means that once it flowers, it sets seed and then dies. However, by then there are ususally a few small offsets around the main bulb, and these take over when the parent bulb dies. I bought mine from Bodnant Garden in Wales, around four years ago, and they were quite big plants at the time. I have waited until now for them to flower! I shall save some seed to carry on the succession, but I may have to wait about ten years for them to be mature enough to flower. Gardeners sometimes have to have a lot of patience........

Purple is my favourite colour, so how could I resist this? It is Campanula 'Sarastro', and has the most magnificent large purple bells. If you were of the right frame of mind, you could imagine them tinkling away in the night, accompanying the fairies as they dance around the garden (and now, back to reality........)

I have a large Cordyline australis (Cabbage Palm) which is around twelve feet tall now, with multiple heads, but it has never flowered until this year. Other plants of this grow in local gardens, and they flower each year, but not mine! I was very excited when I saw the large flower buds beginning to emerge, and elongate into beautiful white flowers. Not only does it look lovely, but it smells wonderful too, and the scent flows around the garden. As an added bonus, the flowers are very attractive to bees, and I counted around ten honey bees on just one of these flowers. This is good news because I haven't seen domesticated honey bees in the garden for a few years now, although the wild bumble bees are still plentiful.

A very pretty shrub in flower this month is Kolkwitzia amabilis. I grew this from seed, many years ago, and it languished for several years in a not very promising spot. Eventually, I got round to moving it into the south-facing border, and it has never looked back! This is a deciduous shrub, with tall, arching stems and narrow slightly hairy light green leaves. On the ends of each stem there are clusters of lovely pale pink bell-shaped flowers with flared mouths. The inside of these are marbled with peach-coloured markings, making it quite unique. The flowers are rather similar to Weigela, and indeed both plants belong to the same genus (Caprifoliaceae). A closeup view of the flowers is shown in the right-hand picture, above.

That's all for this month...... Happy Gardening!!

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Crow, Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Robin, Rook, Seagull, Starling, Swallow, Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

TIME
Ursula Prout

Time fain would linger here amid the flowers
That lend their beauty to the summer’s day,
But lo, the sundial, guardian of the hours,
Lets not one moment linger by the way.

Quiet shadows lengthen in the noonday’s glare,
As wends the sun to westward of the sky,
And thoughts are lost in wonder, unaware
Of time and how so soon it passes by.

But so it is when beauty takes command,
The lovely things of God arrest the sight,
And gazing on the wonders of His hand,
Time has no part to play in our delight.