SoS 30/3/19
This is my favourite part of the year in terms of garden work.
Autumn is energetic, with lots of cutting back, raking leaves, planting bulbs, feeding, watching for growth, and a really subtle feeling of faith and hope – the knowledge that the seasons keep spinning into perpetuity.
It’s also a great time to spend with catalogues for the Matchbox Garden.
I’m a lover of hellebores and have blacks and whites (doubles and singles) in my garden (and one speckled which I was attracted to). This year, I’m adding Double Slate to the black and white scheme.
I also have a couple of clematis I will order. Sieboldii and Romantika which I’d like to plant on a screen on the side fence along with the climbing rose Madame Alfred Carriere (which blooms almost white here). It’s a long screen and is currently ugly reinforcement mesh which I would love to paint black to match the boxed-in beds before planting. In the Large Garden, I need to order my garlic bulbs very quickly as time’s running out.
I’m propagating my own coloured sweetpea seeds. I’ve placed the Euphorbia Diamond Frost in the cold frame for protection as our country nights are chilling right off.
I’ve planted black and white tulip and white daffodil bulbs.
I’ve also ordered black and white bearded iris, white Anemone de Caen and Amazing Grace sweetpea. Of course, these pics are all from the internet. To photograph them myself, we shall have to hope I can grow them out!
And that’s about it for this week but lots to look forward to when the postman comes.
Please do visit all the exciting gardens in Mr.P’s Sos. I find it inspiring and I bet you do too!
Nice choices! The first clematis is beautiful, not to mention the two irises: I love them…
Have a nice weekend Prue
Thatnk you, Fred. I just hope I don’t kill the plants with kindness and amateur garden skills!
By the way, I’m in awe of the hedge you are having removed!
Prue, Iris are one of my favorite flowers. Back home in Idaho I had a remarkable black Iris. On foggy mornings it would send out the most wonderful spicy scent. I know you’ll enjoy yours.
I didn’t realise that iris had a fragrance. Can’t wait to see what its like when it grows, Kathleen. Cheers and best!
That dark, dark, dark iris is wonderful! Can’t wait to see it in real life 🙂
Gill! You’re not sleeping in the greenhouse as referred to by Mr. Rivendell! Hurrah!
I agree re the iris. I hope its as richly black as the pic shows. It reminds me of Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne! 😉
I particularly like irises and they are very tolerant of any kind of weather, it seems. I think they’re impossible to kill. The two you have chosen are stunning. I also love hellebores but have to wait patiently until I have some shade for them. The two I planted soon gave up
I do have 2 iris planted currently, Jane, but they were moved from our old house and have sulked for 4 years. I await their return to splendour, if ever. Simply, the extremes of dry and wet here are so bad for a stable and beautiful garden. We are in drought mode currently on our east coast. Hellebores are such a forgiving and giving plant that I just knew the rarer types would have to become a staple in the Matchbox garden in the city.
Lots of black and white going on there. You gave me a moments panic with your tulip planting. I still have 6 months to go. Phew.
Many years ago, I saw Elton John’s Rosemary Verey-designed garden and it was alive with black and white tulips. It was like some giant chess board and I loved it. I’ve always wanted a white garden and blacks and greys, along with variegated and interesting green foliage seemed the way to accent it. If only we had decent rainfall to make it grow…
Wonderful choices Prue. 🙂
Thanks Libby. Still in white mode with accents! 😉
Will be interesting to see the iris come spring.
I know. Especially in this very trying garden. Lack of rain is a permanent issue.
You always choose such lovely plants Prue. Great colours. I haven’t got many black or slate coloured things in my garden. My daughter commented on this yesterday. She loves these colours and wants a patch of ground to create a ‘goth garden’. I’ll pass on your Iris and hellebore plant names to her!
Thank you so much, Katharine. I sometimes think folk might see it as so one-dimensional. The thing with the old coast garden is no matter how I try to turn it white, little coloured plants that have been here forever always stake a claim. But in our tiny city garden, a new garden, it’s possible to control exactly what is planted, and to tend it with love and care, if not deep knowledge. I labelled bulbs as I planted this week and thought that it’s something learned from SoS.
LOVE the idea of your daughter’s Goth garden and look forward to seeing how it eventuates!