Our Garden 3 .7.10

It never ceases to surprise me how many different plant types can e shoe horned into a little space!

As one plant dies back, another can fill out and bloom.

This can mean cramming 4, or 5 different plants into a square metre of ground! This low, creeping HYPERICUM can be used in this way.

Some plants lend themselves to this technique better than others. RED HOT POKER, for example, keeps a dense set of leaves all year round, which has it's advantages.

For many plants, the fact is, that when they're over, they need to be cut back to a greater or lesser extent. Poppy seed heads look so statuesque that I like to keep them for a month or so after flowering.

This Verbascum 

is one of my all time favourite plants. It's colours are pretty.

Talking of all time favourites, this little trooper (literally) , ACHILLEA PTARMICA, THE PEARL, has featured in every garden I've owned. Good for cut flowers as well, as it lasts for weeks.

LAVENDER is another good value plant as the flowers pretty much dry on the plant and can be left in place until you can't stand the sight of them any more. Or until it's time to prune them anyway.

The LILLY pot in te front garden has two good, but different plants in bloom right now. I think it's a great look to brighten a dull spot and the smart, metal pots are not much admired by the slugs and snails.

I grow BUNNIES EARS primarily for their fluffy leaves. They sit well with the tiny ALPINE STRAWBERRIES that meander around the flower beds, if given too much of a chance.

CREEPING JENNY (upside down shot!) goes yellowish leaved as it comes into flower. Really rather attractive. It's another plant that will wander if it has half a chance.

Its' habit of trailing over walls and dripping onto new found surfaces makes it a very useful ground cover specimen.

Talking of trailing over walls, this OSTEOSPERMUM  must be one of the longest flowering plants around. It can flower from last to first frost if dead flower heads are pulled off as they appear.

For me HYDRANGEAS are another long flowering plant. Although later to come into flower, its' heads can be left on right through the winter.

My various fruit plants are doing well. A massive number of grapes are forming. |I know I should remove at least half the bunches, or face small fruits, but I can't. I love the look of all those bunches clustered along its' branches.

The second year for our RASPBERRIES and, despite the ravages of our DEER little visitor, fruit  is setting. These are an  Autumn variety, although a few fruits appear right through the summer. And before you ask .. yes it was I that scoffed the missing fruit!

My neighbour keeps a NETTLE BED; not for medicinal purposes, but for wildlife. Lovely looking plant, when you peer a little closer.