No rain this week either
We have had another week with no rain and I have managed to finish digging the side border at the front. It now looks like this:
The fence faces southwest, so the part at the front gets loads of sun which gives me a lot of choice as to what I can grow there. As you can see from the photograph, the end of the fence is blocked from sunlight by the house. A climber up the fence may have a chance of some sunlight, but any perennial or shrub I grow on the ground is going to get very little sun or moisture.
Dave, my previously-mentioned very patient boyfriend, took me to Whitewater nursery again to choose some plants for my birthday present. I persuaded the following to come home with me:
Lonicera x Tellmaniana – happy in shade or part-shade, but apparently is not particularly fragrant. This is not a great drawback given that I am planting two fragrant plants along the border.
Jasminum officinale – wants a sunny spot.
Hebe Youngii Carl Flescher – looks quite compact and does purple flowers.
Elaeagnus x ebbingei – more of that later.
Pratia Pedunculata – my pocket-sized Plants for Places book says it can be invasive. It doesn’t mind a bit of shade, so if it gets too invasive I can just move it to somewhere even shadier.
Chaenorrhinum – I’ve never heard of this one before, but it looked pretty, and it likes sunny well-drained soil, so it can go at the sunny end of the strip and see how it likes it.
After several unsuccessful attempts to take cuttings of the elaeagnus from the plant at the edge of an estate I cycle past on my way to work, I gave in and acquired a plant of my own. This is definitely a foolish thing to do as I have no idea where I am going to put it. It isn’t going in my new border because it’s too vigorous and I would have to keep cutting bits off it so I could get past. I am reluctant to put it in the main front garden because it is shade-tolerant, and the front garden gets masses of sun. For now I am just going to put it in a great big pot and enjoy the heavenly scent of its flowers, which are just beginning to appear.
Apart from this, this week I dug up my photinia cutting that I successfully planted about ten years ago. It was possibly my most brutal operation so far, because the poor thing was right against the back fence and I couldn’t easily get at it to dig a reasonable sized hole around it. Also the roots of the silver birch tree in the garden behind kept getting in the way. But in the end I got a good chunk of root with the plant, and I have watered it well, so I shall just hope that my run of luck with digging up mature plants holds.