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Monthly Musings from Moors Meadow
I have been sitting here trying to think what I have been doing in the garden lately, apart from strimming that is. Not that I really mind strimming but it has been about 3 hours every morning for the last week and it all looks much tidier for my effort but in a few short weeks I will have to turn round and do it all again, I don’t even mind that thought too much but strimming does tend to numb your brain after a while (not that many people would notice the difference!). I have been doing other things, in fact I don’t seem to have time to sit down for long, it is just taking me a while to remember what they are.
I have been weeding, like ripping out a patch of Rubus tricolor, a very useful ground cover if you have a large area you want covered quite quickly but in this particular place I felt it was a bit too much of a bossy boots and as we do have it in other places it was time to give it the old heave-ho and put in something slightly more genteel but we haven’t decided what yet. We have been doing a lot of general weeding under the shrubberies and the herbaceous beds, the horrible Cleavers is on the rampage again so we want to get as much out as we can before it seeds.
In the big herbaceous bed below the dingle Plantain has been seeding too freely, or Knockheads as we call it as we used to play the more timid version of conkers with it, the rabbits are also a bit of a problem in that bed. There are still a lot of good clump forming plants there that do well like Iris, Kniphofia and Astrantia so we have been propagating a variety of Iris to try to fill the bed.
I must tell you about our Ada, to be more precise - Crinodendron Ada Hoffman, we only introduced her to the garden 2 years ago and she is flowering a beautiful delicate pink. We were not sure if she would survive this winter but she is flourishing. We do have several Crinodendron hookerianum, the red Japanese Lantern Tree, and we know about C.patagua, the white version which is said to be more tender but we hadn’t heard of Ada until we found her in a nursery asking to be taken home with us, well how could we resist!
Mum is pleased with her new Syringa Red Wine (Lilac), the buds are a red wine colour, at least I think it is that colour but perhaps I should just find some way of checking to be sure! I do hope when the flowers open it still looks as good.
June is a lovely month in the garden with a lot of Flora looking blooming lovely and the Fauna is active as always, I like watching the young fledgling birds making their 1st forays into the big wide world and the dragonflies and butterflies will be in more abundance as we head into summer.
Mellors is flagging in the heat, I do hope he continues to give satisfaction or I may have to let him go.
Plant of the month; Carpenteria californica (Tree Anemone)
There is only one species of Carpenteria which is an evergreen shrub from a small area in central California on dry mountain slopes, named for an American Professor Carpenter.
In the wild it can grow to 20ft (6m) tall but in gardens it usually reaches 6-8ft (1.8-2.4m).
The flowers are about 2-3ins (5-7cm) across and flowers profusely by our sunny south facing house wall where we lightly prune it when it sprawls too far over the path. It does like a cool climate with warm dry summers, gritty soil but not too dry, and likes protection from strong winds. Propagation is easiest from seed.
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