Welcome to this new month, we have had some rotten weather in the last week, days of rain or sunshine and showers, not weather you could rely on to plan a day, as it was always altering. This the first day has been sunny all morning and short sharp showers this afternoon. One thing that it has done is make everything grow (especially the weeds) real fast and the blooms in the garden are something special, with most things looking wonderful. So I will start the month with just a few selected plants to brighten up the start of what hopefully will be a more settled summer month.
1st.
Firstly all the different colours of the Lupins throughout the garden.
Our red climbing Rose called Guinea, every garden we have had since being married we have always had one of these in our garden, it has had more blooms than ever this year but the foliage has been rubbish.
The first shot is this Geranium in bud, then when it was out.
This I think is called a Fox and it’s Cubs and is in fact a wildflower but we love it in our garden.
Never remember the name of this plant I only know that it is not an easy to grow climber and a very close friend is very envious of ours coming up every year.
I showed you this plant last year it is Rattle, a parasite that feeds on grass routes and is an important plant in our wild meadow little block we have at the top of the garden. From a few seeds it has now taken over about eight square metres of the grass and is really a pleasure to see.
Lastly our Delphinium which is the best it has ever been with as you can see more shoots to come and is such a great colour.
6th.
You can often walk through an area (like this our local park) and not notice the beauty in such everyday things as the grasses growing each side of your path. Walking back along the river to the car park I captured these images and if you really look, so much variety and wonderful colours within each stem.
7th.
I know you are most probably fed up with my Pine Martin shots, but I have hollowed out this section of fallen pine and each evening I place peanuts in it and of the three nights I have done this, he has found them and (even though through the double glazing) I am managing to get a lot of more natural shots of him having a feed. If I thought I could get our Red Squirrels feeding from here in the daytime and not the bird eating pest of the Magpie and Jay I would fill it during the day instead of filling it after eight at night.
If this wind would drop I might even set up my hide and wait to get shots of both without glass slightly altering the sharpness of the shot.
9th.
No sooner had I stated in the last entry that if I put peanuts out in the day it would attract Magpies and Jays and look what turned up first thing this morning, with the evidence in it’s mouth.
13th.
I said it was “Blooming July” and here is another addition to that scenario, the Campanula in blue and white are spectacular this year and along with the blue sky make up a wonderful day.
Been a busy couple of weeks so only one blog this month, Had one son over from America and we visited our other son in Ayrshire for a few days, the first time my wife and I have been with both our sons together for eight years, so I hope that forgives me from doing a bi-monthly blog.
20th.
Had a walk along the Tay today outside Perth, hoping to see the Osprey that frequents that part of the river, no luck on that front, but I did see this giant Hogweed . The seed head above was (with no exaggeration) three foot across and though I did not go near the leaves they are meant to cause severe blistering to the skin. Another invasive species spreading via the river course, plenty of Japanese Knotweed along that stretch as well.
21st.
Took our American son for a walk from the House of Bruar shopping complex up to the Falls of Bruar which as you have seen in my previous blogs can be pretty spectacular, not today. There is hardlyany water in the river because of this tropical spell of hot weather we have just experienced so I concentrated on the uncovered rocks and their wonderful patterns within, worn down by the water, when it flows.
This shot shows the small puddle of water coming over the rocks (compared with normal it is pathetic) and the wee person on the bridge is “the wife”.
23rd.
Carrying this months theme of “blooming” we decided to put some different coloured Snapdragons in the garden and just love the variety of colours modern Antirrhinums can give you, so below is a selection of ours. Taken after a welcome shower of rain.
26th.
Continuing with the “blooming” month here are a collection of our Clematis that we have in the garden, some well established others new this year. We thought that maybe this species would not grow that well with us and admittedly some of them have not enjoyed either their position or soil while others have thrived.
The above is a climbing Clematis that is very happy in our garden and has grown enormous, climbing to the top of one of the Silver Birches and showing these magnificent blooms, followed by great seed heads. It is one for some strange reason I can remember the name of Bill McKenzie (family connection) .
From now on you will see we have a liking towards reds and purples, this particular one has been a struggle to grow and we were really surprised when (for the first time) this actually flowered. The first shot is a bloom going over, but fortunately there are a few more following on, as shown in the second shot of the same plant.
Same again with this plant, normally we may manage one bloom on this several year old plant but this year we seem to have three or four blooms. Maybe the mild winter has helped all the plants in the garden to get an early start.
We only planted this one in May and it has this (going over) bloom with four more buds lower down, so it obviously likes it’s spot in the garden.
This is one that although it produces flowers never seems happy and really is pathetic, but I must show you our failures as well as successes.
This is, like the first one a good reliable flowering plant, an Autumn blooming Clematis that just keeps on giving us blooms for weeks and looks like that will continue for years to come.
27th.
I want to finish this long “Blooming July” blog with a real success story , but also a sign of our climate changes. When we moved into this house (18 years now) we planted a Hydrangea and it grew very well as far as greenery was concerned, but every year the winter frosts were sufficient (even though we covered it with fleece) to kill the new growth off. Therefore we would never get successful blooms the next year, maybe we would get two or three flowers and that was it. This year as you will see from the shot below we have at last succeeded in getting multiple blooms, though small they are a joy for us to see. So I felt a fitting way to finish this months blog.
