Trisha’s Meanderings - February
A summer like never before - the garden on steroids and am burning it all onto my retina as know there will be other summers not as lush.
Adore colour - the brighter the better - in the garden and everywhere - in the house, clothes, everything - but somehow this past month has been a calm cerebral white and green with creamy white lilies at every turn - the lilium longiforums and even more spectacularly, the Crinum lilies, which are incredibly beautiful, hardy and bounteous with their blooms - have had bowls of them inside and they just keep producing new blooms for weeks.
Years ago, I went to an historic garden where they had a lily walk and I was so taken with it I ordered heaps of cilium longiforums - some November lilies, some Christmas lilies and then, when spying a friends Crinum flowering madly, I ordered one of those and now have them everywhere where I have divided them to different areas of the garden. Fabulous green foliage quite like agapanthus and tall stately stunning blooms throughout summer.
Not as striking but so beloved is the snowberry, Symphoricarpus albus which is one of my favourite shrubs - have hedged it and love filling vases with the creamy berries that look stunning either on their own or amongst roses or any other flower in vases or posies for friends. Tough as boots but preferring a cold climate - it IS more than slightly promiscuous, and you will find it in any bed in any company if you don’t curb its wandering habit!! My way of keeping under some kind of control was to plant a hedge of it with gravel path on one side and lawn on the other side (instant hedge as it grows so quickly) - it sends up suckers from the roots so is great to starting a hedge as one plant will soon multiply into many.
And for more white - am looking out my office window over a shrub of flowering lemon verbena with its sweetly scented leaves which I pick for my morning tea and has sweetest spires of white flowers - and beyond are spires of white Larkspur which have self-seeded into the gravel of the courtyard, making their own picture - these are fabulous for dry gardens as they dislike too much moisture and are like a smaller flowered delphinium, comes in blue and pink also.
To break up the white are the vivid orange flowers of a pomegranate I have. Planted hopefully against the office wall to protect it from the worst of winter frosts….and I treasure each jewel of fruit that is produced.
Trisha
