I am very pleased with the two Erodiums I bought at Perth a couple of weeks ago, E. chrysanthum and E. manescavii, both now planted out in a sunny and sheltered spot.  I think of Erodium as a rock garden version of Geranium, but the two genera are very closely related, along with Pelargonium.   Erodium should be just as hardy as Geranium though.

Geraniums are Cranesbills of course, whilst Erodiums are called Heronsbills and Pelargoniums Storksbills.  Their English names describe the shape of their fruits apparently.

E. chrysanthum has silvery-grey leaves, with flowers of cream to pale yellow (which manage to avoid the colour combination I normally dislike, of grey and yellow).  It is quite compact, and cushion forming, but does spread a little.  Its geranium-like flowers grow in summer about 15cm high, but its leaves are not really like those of ordinary geraniums.  chrysanthum is I hope a misnomer because it is Greek for gold-flowered, which is not what I am expecting.

E. manescavii is the other Erodium I got, much more like a miniature geranium, in leaf and flower.  It’s a little bigger than E. chrysanthum, perhaps 20 cm high, less inclined to spread, but self-seeding freely.

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We have very few honey bees at any time, and this year practically none, but we do have many bumble bees of various species, and we find individuals from time to time looking as though they are unable to move, let alone fly.  They are usually in the middle of a lawn, or somewhere away from their nest.

During the last few weeks, on BBC Radio 4, they have been reading a book called A sting in the Tail by Dave Goulson, for whom bumble bees have been a lifelong interest, and we have begun applying one of his suggestions with apparently exhausted bees.

We make a mixture of equal parts of ordinary honey (actually Rowse’s honey, not supermarket adulterated stuff) and boiling water,  put a few drops of it on a hard surface, and take the affected bumble bee to it.

I can attest that this does revive them.  We can watch as they crawl to where the mixture is, take in the mixture, then stop for a bit, then take some more.  Then they give their wings a test run, and pretty soon, they are able to fly off.  We have don’t it twice so far, and it has worked without a hitch. I hope it makes a difference.

Bumble bees are so interesting, and I know all too little about them yet, but I gather there are fewer species in Scotland than further south, but the surviving queens set forth to forage earlier in the the year here apparently.  The queens are the only ones that survive the winter, and when they do emerge, the need for them to find nectar is urgent. If they fail, they go into a torpor and die; these presumably are the bumble bees that we are rescuing.

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Several experienced plantsmen have told me this is Skimmia x confusa ‘Kew Green’, so it must be.  However none of them saw it in flower, and both Hillier and my RHS encyclopaedia agree that ‘Kew Green’ has creamy-white flowers.  Its flowers look more greeny-yellow when looking at the plant as a whole, and only appear creamy-white when looked at close up.

Skimmia x confusa ‘Kew Green’

Anyway it is a handsome shrub, and has never flowered as well as this in the past ten years.  Perhaps the two wet summers he have had in succession has helped it, or the mulch it has been given.  Last year I pruned it in order to shape it a bit, but I doubt whether that had any particular effect on its health. It also used to be somewhat chlorotic, but that seems to have cleared up; I did give it some high N fertilizer last year, which may have helped with that.

The slab of green groundcover to its right incidentally, is Vancouveria hexandra, a  really first class groundcover for shade.

The name Skimmia is a latinization of the Japanese word shikimi.  Shikimi is, naturally, an entirely different, unrelated and extremely toxic plant called Japanese Star Anise (Illicium anisatum)!  Confusa means confused, but why it should be applied to this plant I don’t know (apart from the above).

Same shrub, taken October 2011

I googled S. x. confusa ‘Kew Green’ to see if there was anything interesting about it, and first in the row pf pictures of the plant, was this very one, photographed by me in October 2011, chlorotic, poorly shaped and not at all bursting with health as it is now.

It likes moderately fertile, moist, well-drained soil, and insists on partial or full shade, which suits us well, and has no disease or pest problems. It is a male plant only, and therefore just has these flowers, and no fruits.  It does have a very pungent smell which we love, but not everyone does.

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We are going to pretend that the area opened up yesterday by losing the R.ponticum, is big enough to be called a flower bed, and at that it will be known as Victor’s Bed, since our dog Victor’s laurels (Prunus lusitanica) are already there.

It’s an interesting prospect, because it is completely within the rain shadow of the huge C. leylandii, and is crossed by its roots the thickness of a man’s arm or thicker.  Naturally the C.leylandii sucks up as much water as it possibly can.  The site is partly sunny, but the Skimmia to its south is quite big and casts a big shadow. Wind can come whistling through our iron gates to its north-east, making it a cold and draughty spot in the winter until the end of March (or this year, April).  So conditions are not entirely ideal.

First, I have sprinkled a fair amount of Growmore over the area.  It perhaps doesn’t need this, but on the other hand, it is only going to get it once, and now is the opportunity.  Next deliver several barrowloads of compost to mix well into the dust and sand that is all there is at the moment, and water it thoroughly through our perforated hoses for several days.  Meanwhile I shall spread several more barrowloads of compost over the top.

We want to place very carefully as a centrepiece, a new Rhododendron, an Exbury hybrid azalea, with blazing colour (the one illustrated above is Areneson’s Gem, which we already have), accompanied by several Epimedium grandiflorum ‘White Queen’ if we can get it, and near the existing Skimmia a single Hosta ‘Sum & Substance’, in turn protected by a pair of ferns: Dryopteris wallichiana is the one we like best, which tolerates dry reasonably well.  Around the Hosta, to be consistent, we will no doubt place a few Dicentra as a marker for it.

That should be plenty to fill the space, but we shall want to have plenty of bulbs as well:  Erythronium dens-canis would be good, with some Narcissus (ones with trumpets tending to pink), some Tulipa ‘Spring Green’ and Leucojum vernum, Iris reticulata ‘Edward’, and I might even be able to squeeze in some Iris foetidissima in the shadiest bit.

This is my plan.  Naturally we shall end up with something entirely different!

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Rhododendron ponticum

There was never the danger of this R. ponticum behaving as it does in so many wetter parts of the the country, but even so it had become a pretty horrible thing, and had very few viable buds this year, having put all its energy into layering itself and presenting a bunch of spindly sticks each with a collection of leaves at the top, much chewed by some unwanted pests.  We had been told that it must have been planted here because nothing else would grow, but we have already disproved that, by planting three Portugal Laurel (Prunus lusitanica) right next to it, which are thriving.

So it’s now gone.  Removal (of what was one plant originally) took a whole morning, and produced a wheelbarrowload of roots, which took quite a bit of getting up because the monstrous C. leylandii‘s roots get in the way everywhere.  I left one layered plant, just in case all else fails.

Roots of R. ponticum and its layers

The result is a nice space for some new planting, once we have worked in several barrows-full of compost.  We think of having an Exbury/Knaphill type of azalea so that we shall be able to see right through this bed to a contrasting woodland part of the garden which needs a very little adding to it, in the way of ferns, hostas and other plants for shade.  Perhaps it would be expecting too much of a shrub rose in a situation like this, but I might try and find a variety that will happily grow in partial shade which it would certainly need to do here. Would Rosa xanthina ‘Canary Bird’ work I wonder?  And plenty of bulbs: daffodils in the form of N. ‘Rima’, ‘Bell Song’, ‘Potential’ or ‘Pink Pride’, tulips of various varieties, and a chance to make use of Erythronium and Leucojum.

This is the new open space, from the other side, the P. lusitanica (planted in memory of our dog Victor) to the right, thriving, and the remains of R. ponticum allowed to stay, on probation.

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We are gradually arranging our planting so that wherever we have Hostas, we also have Dicentra, to act as markers, on the basis that the Dicentras will be over by the time the Hostas really come into their own. At least some Dicentras, (one has to find out which from experience as far as I can tell), die down completely and disappear quite quickly when they have finished flowering, in June, which is just right provided the seasons haven’t completely changed.

Dicentra formosa ‘Spring Magic’ and Hosta ‘Fire & Ice’

The first photograph shows the three Dicentra formosa ‘Spring Magic’ which we got yesterday from Perth, now planted as a group amongst Hosta ‘Fire and Ice’, which has been divided into two and moved here from somewhere too dry for it.  The pair of Solomon Seal (Polygonatum x hybridum) came with the hostas.  (This group replaces a group of Heuchera three years old which had done what they all seem to do after about three years (that is, to lift themselves out of the ground with only their taproot left and a  tuft of hopeless leaves on top).

D. formosa & H. sieboldiana

The second photograph shows our association of Dicentra with Hosta in the same bed which we did last year, this time using D. formosa f. alba alongside Hosta sieboldiana. The Dicentra has served its purpose, the Hosta having now emerged above the ground.

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We like to go every year to Perth’s Garden Plant Fair, and make a beeline for CCPlants, a stall set up by Cath, from Glenalmond.  We have been getting plants from her in preference to most sources for nearly ten years, as she invariably has beautifully grown plants that are really reliable, hardy as anything, and never at risk of importing pests or diseases, as well as being a mixture of the ordinary and some slightly more unusual plants.

This time we came home with Geum rivulare ’Leonard’ Variety’.  We like G.r. ’Mrs Bradshaw’ very much, but this more subtle flower colour is going to suit us well (see above). We also got 2 Lavandula ‘Hidcote’ (the most ordinary of English lavenders), a Rosemary called R. officinalis ‘Sudbury Blue’, Geum rivulare ‘Leonard’ Variety’ (we like G.r. ‘Mrs Bradshaw’, but this dusky pink flowering variety makes a nice change), 3 Dicentra formosa ‘Spring Magic’, Erodium manescavii, Erodium chrysanthemum, Artemisia ‘Silver Queen’, 3 Nemesia sunsatia ‘Cherry on Ice’, and Fritillaria meleagris.

The Snakeshead Fritillary I have never tried to grow before,thinking it a rather difficult plant to place in a garden, apart from in a wild context; it has such elegant beauty, but it would be easy to miss, and is an individual rather than a clumping or spreading plant. We hope to place it in conditions it will like, in a gap between our terrace paving stones (we had a hebe there, which had succumbed to the effects of two successive hard winters).

Cath had decided to produce Nemesia this year in place of Diascia, which we normally buy a few of, though they are not long-lived.  I had not come across N. sunsatia ’Cherry on Ice’ before, but we saw some in flower (and of course chose ones that were not), and they have this very striking colouring, the flowers shaped like a miniature snapdragon.

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The new header picture today is of our lovely Cercidiphyllum japonica coming into leaf now, with the flowering wild cherry (Prunus avium) beneath.

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Actinidia kolomikta – appearance as in June

Actinidia kolomikta is a good deciduous climber whose chief interest is its leaves, which when young are a yellow/green and white, changing to green, light crimson and white as they mature.  Another species, A. deliciosa, bears flowers followed by fruit (Kiwi fruit), but unfortunately it is not as hardy as A. kolomikta.

A.kolomikta – young leaves

A characteristic of A. kolomikta is that it is irresistible to cats, who dig about round its roots and find it an excellent spot to use as a lavatory.  Because of this, and because we had some plants we wanted to establish here, we surrounded the bed with a fence of wire-netting as a deterrent, until we came across a product called Cat-a-Pult which is made by Bayer.  The instructions on it say that it should repel cats for six weeks.  The price had been reduced twice, and was only £3.  Perhaps the reason for the reduction was that six weeks was somewhat over-optimistic.  It was completely ignored by our cat within six hours.  Whether it is a flawed product, or simply no match for the attraction of A. kolomikta I cannot say, but it didn’t work, and we shall not be bothering with it again. On the other hand the fence is gone, so the plants are just going to have to take their chances from now on.

Actinidia kolomikta in wall bed

The plants we wanted to grow here happily did work very well, and can be seen in the photograph.  They are ‘Primslips’, which came up from Devonshire as tiny plants last year. So far they appear more cowslip than primrose, but that may change – primulas can fool us again and again.

Primula vulgaris x veris

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Rhododendron ‘Wine and Roses’ – May 6, 2013

Our two rather individual rhododendrons are both performing rather well this year.

The first of these is R. ‘Wine and Roses’ which is about to burst into flower any day now.  This is the one with the undersides of the leaves an unusual red wine colour, not appreciated all the time, but transforming its appearance if the wind picks up enough to twits its leaves.  I posted some photographs of this in early April last year, which show that it is flowering a month later this year.  I have included one of the 2012 photographs to illustrate the growth, which can be difficult to judge in advance for rhododendrons, many of which despite their descriptions don’t stop growing at a defined height.

Rhododendron ‘Wine and Roses’ – April 3, 2012

Here’s a picture of the indumentum:

The other rhododendron is R. ‘Ever Red’.  This I featured here April 17th last year, and gave it a rather grudging review, mainly because it seemed to have been suffering from attack by vine weevils, I thought it was on the way out, and I didn’t like it very much anyway.  It has grown on me since then; it seems to have thrown off the the weevil damage which is certainly no worse now than last year, and there is something quite striking about the bronze foliage.  But it is the flowers which really are rather special, with their deep red colour and the sort of waxy appearance that some rhododendron flowers seem to manage.  There are not a great many flowers, but that seems to be normal for this variety.

Rhododendron ‘Ever Red’

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We have been trying to grow Fritillaria imperialis for years with no success at all, and here at last we have managed to persuade one to flower.

Fritillaria imperialis

Perhaps Crown Imperials are difficult here because although there is absolutely no difficulty  in providing them with the very sharp drainage they need to avoid rotting away, they also ask for fertile conditions and full sun.  The few places where we could provide full sun for them are just the places where we wouldn’t want them, so they have to make do with sun for part of the day.  They are positioned under our Lilac tree, Syringa x prestoniae, but this works as the Fritillary should be over before the Syringa comes into leaf.

Why the Fritillaries should be flowering this year and not others is all the same a bit contrary, considering that what they really want is a long hot dry summer, the extreme opposite of what we have had for each of the past two years.

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