garden withoutdoors

It's nice being away but also nice to get back to the cats.

The place where I stay on the south coast has a fantastic clump of erigeron.

These pink flowers are in the front garden. I don't know what they are.

I posted a pic of this last year as well. I still don't know what it is.

I don't know what this is either.

Back at home, I picked a sprig of that catnip which she played with and it's on the mat next to her.

20-5-2014

Even if we're on a main road (I'm on 4 London bus routes), we can have beautiful front gardens. The ceanothus is looking great right now. I have 4 and they all bloom at different times. I showed the foxgloves on the right (below), this one is on the left. On the doorstep is a nepeta which I bought as I don't seem to have much luck with seeds and wanted my cats to have access to cat nip if they want. There's another in the back garden.

The best addition to a garden ever: 2 cats.

I just can't get enough of these foxgloves. From what I saw of early Chelsea coverage yesterday, foxgloves feature strongly in the show gardens - a classic beautiful flower! I'm glad they're being appreciated.

I can just see an iris foetidissima next door in the photo above. I have some blooms in my garden.  I never noticed before but this morning (couple days later, 22-5) these are buzzing with bees, as are the foxgloves, aquilegia, comfrey and ceanothus but especially the green alkanet. They seem to love the sun being out.

Some of the buds before they bloomed.

It's interesting to see my garden from next door and the garden from next door. I never remember so many iris foetidissima in bloom since I planted them 2 or 3 years ago (will have to check the date). That ceanothus I think looks better from next door.  Those hollyhocks look ready to burst into bloom soon.

A cerinthe self-seeded right next to the wall, not the best place to grow. I'm going to try to move it.

A foxglove and lupin in the back garden.

The magic time when the iris blooms. They don't last long but while they're in bloom they're beautiful.

Here are the iris in situ surrounded by aquilegia and green alkanet and a stachys on the right.

The thyme is in flower.

The chives are in bloom. I love these flowers.

I love foxgloves. I always have some in the garden, whether planted myself or self-seeded. I was so pleased to see these, in my garden, in the garden next door (planted by myself) and the garden after that from a plant I gave my neighbour there. I love that continuity.

My cat Polly Pocket loves laying in the sun in the front garden.

Centaurea montana which I planted a few years ago. Grateful to see 2 plants have survived. Not sure how many I had originally, sure at least 3. This is one of those plants that I tried from seed a few times but gave in and bought plants in the end.

I'm not sure what happened to this. I thought it was really interesting but when I looked for it this morning it was difficult to find.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/10785393/Germaine-Greer-stop-weeding-and-let-nature-take-over.html

Our weeds are wildflowers. We just need to pick and choose those we like best.  As she says "Yarrow, tansy, ragwort, toadflax, mulleins, mallows, clovers, willow-herbs, dead nettles, comfreys, speedwells – all are wild flowers. "

I certainly love some plants that are considered weeds but I don't think anything is going to induce me to leave the dandelions, herb robert and bluebells in my garden. My garden just isn't big enough to have thugs takeover - and I don't like them! We need to grow what we like, keeping an open mind - and thinking about the bees!

green alkanet - flowers early before other flowers get going and the bees love it

This is one of my versions of the Great Piece of Turf (I have so many - almost any pot or patch of ground). I see Nigella but not sure what else, esp the large one in the middle. Will leave them all until they are recognisable.

I am struggling to get the red poppies to grow yet I have other wild flower poppies self-seeding like mad. (There's one of those pesky bluebells!)

The lily-of-the-valley seem to be a law unto themselves. I tried to plant these within the brick circle around the tree trunk (the inner brick circle with moss) but  these have decided to spread into the path (just to the right of Socks) rather than around the tree. No idea why. And why don't they grow from corms? No idea. I could only get these from the growing plants sold at Christmas, and a generous neighbour who had them growing like weeds.

I was in the garden trying to take some detailed pics of forget-me-nots, camera still in my hand, when the fox jumped over the fence and onto the wall to make his escape as I disturbed him so I just pointed the camera and snapped.

I love foxes. I hear about urban foxes getting very bold but the ones in my garden aren't. They run away whenever people are about. Luckily they never seem to bother the cats.

forget-me-nots

These are the auriculas a week later. They are changing so quickly. They are mostly in bloom now. Only the one on the bottom shelf, on the far right has no blooms and no buds, out of the 17 I bought.

I didn't buy any specific varieties (what do you want for 1.99 from the garden centre!) so when they turn out to be nice colours, it's a bonus. A number seem to have quite a lot of meal or farina on them (not sure the best term as I'm quite new to auriculas). I'm watering them by placing them in a tray with water. That's causing the tidemarks on the pots. I must brush them off.

Some of the plants came with more than one in the pot. I'm wondering if these are two different colours or if the one on the left will look the same when it blooms.

I bought the plants, I had the terracotta pots, I had the shelves, now I need to sort out some sort of roof or cover to keep the rain off them to make this display into a real "theatre".

Red Poppies

I'm still waiting for red poppies. I planted loads for the centenary but haven't seen a single seedling yet. These orange ones self-seeded.

The vinca has been fantastic this year - more flowers than ever. Showing if off with Socks is a bonus.

The green alkanet is beautiful right now (I took these photos this morning). Unfortuantlely someone recently wrote in a major UK newspaper about its summer flowers. I wouldn't take advice from them - it flowers in the spring! It's great because it flowers before other flowers and it's wilted by the time other flowers are blooming so it's perfectly timed. Also the bees love them - and there's not much in bloom right now.

While I'm talking about misinformation, green alkanet is often misnamed as borage. I hate blog writers who do that  and then have no mechanism to be contacted to let them know, ie no email address.

I'm happy to hear from readers at julie at gardenwithindoors.org.uk. You don't need to register or fill out a contact form.