August’s Arrival – Six on Saturday

Can you believe August has arrived already? There are times when it feels like the garden is about to go over but then there are flashes of colour and some things just coming into their own to give hope that the season has not yet come to its floriferous finale!

When I loosely planned the colour scheme in the garden, it started with all the pastel colours of Spring, merging from pinks and light purples into deeper pinks, purples and whites of Summer to finish with a crescendo of red in late Summer with the Crocosmia Lucifer.

It still works along those lines but the Crocosmia is no longer the last blast of colour to appear. Not only does it seem to be blooming earlier and earlier every year but I want don’t want everything to finish in August any more. The more you learn about plants and flowers, the more you want to have and by adding things like Hydrangea Paniculatas and my favourite Salvia Amistads, I’ve extended the whites and purples into Autumn.

The wet Summer downpours which have helped make everything look lush have not however, been loved by the poor Lavender which is now starting to look straggly in some areas. I have a lot of Lavender dotted around the garden, in the ground and in pots but it looks like it will need a haircut this year slightly earlier than normal! Since I took this picture earlier in the week, it has been battered by heavy rains.

Something to look forward to though is the emerging flowers on the Ipomoea Purpurea. This variety of Morning Glory is called ‘Party Dress’ and the pink is so vibrant that I wish I had a dress that colour – just look at how the white and the pink work together in perfect harmony. The pictures aren’t great as I’m growing them in containers to hang off my balcony and I was hanging off it trying to get a snap. Their natural habit is to climb so we’ll see how successfully I can get them to dangle!

My last flower to show is either an epic fail or an epic disaster – I cannot decide which!

I grew Shasta Daisies from seed last year, potted them on and planted them out in early Spring. The packet said they’d grow to 90cm or 3 feet high, let me tell you, these bad boys are now at over 5 feet high! So in terms of growing a huge plant, a total success but planting them at the front of a border, where they obscure everything else and are actually now growing into the trees, a total fail! I’ll have to move them in the Autumn once they have finished flowering but for now, I’m constantly cutting the tallest stems for vases in the house to try and reduce the height!

Do feel free to me leave a comment on these six and enjoy reading other #SixonSaturday blogs for information and inspiration from gardeners around the world sharing six things from their garden on a Saturday. #SixonSaturday is hosted by The Propagator, and you’ll find lots of links on Twitter on the #SixonSaturday hashtag. You can find The Pink Wheelbarrow on Twitter at @PinkWheelbarrow.