The City Garden in late May is finally starting to take shape. It has been a tough time for the garden over the past two years but it is time to start talking about it again. And I am going to do this post for Six on Saturday, my first post in nearly two years!
Hydrangeas
I grow hydrangeas in tall rubbish bins. It doesn’t sound very nice but the bins allow a decent depth of soil which seems to retain the moisture. There are five of these! And I have found a spot in the garden where they seem to flourish and so I am planting more. Annabelle seems fairly happy in a shady spot and I am going to plant some cuttings and hope to have another patch.
The garden is very difficult, with a lot of shade and one or two dry corners, hence the use of rubbish bins which can be placed in the sun!
Libertia Grandiflora
One year I left the dead flowerheads on the Libertias. The next spring I noticed a host of seedlings! There were perhaps as many as two dozen! They are evergreen plants, resilient and for one month in the year the flowers are graceful and delicate. So I am going to plant more. I potted up the seedlings and now have some well-established plants which I hope will flower next year.
I am going to plant clumps against the back wall which I am replanting after cutting down two shrubs and the clematis.
Very small geraniums
I think these are a variety of geranium macrorrhizum. They propagate easily and are just gorgeous.
Species geraniums
A few years ago a kind lady in Tower Hamlets gave me one or two cuttings and look at them now! These guys are TOUGH. I am planting them on the new Pavement Garden – more about that another time.
Blowsy geraniums
The geraniums were left out because there is no greenhouse. Sometimes they make it through the winter, and sometimes not. I cut down the deep carmine geraniums; the other left alone and they have all rewarded me generously.
Green Lewisham
The City Garden has been neglected mainly because of a book. The last two years have been tough and I found an escape by exploring the green spaces in Lewisham in south east London. I tried to understand their history, I wrote about them and I photographed. Eventually I included 90 sites in the book which will be published through Amazon and others on 7 July this year. It was a huge undertaking!
And those are my Six on Saturday.
I like you idea with the hydrangea.
I bet researching for the book was fun. Hope it sells well. Nice to see you back among the sixers Candy. I love the idea of the rubbish bins – where did you buy them from? I could do with something similar for my hydrangea and camellia.
Congratulations on the book. Your geraniums are very nice. It’s hard for me to grow them here as the summers can be very hot and I don’t have a lot of shady places. My g. ‘Rozanne’ gave up very quickly.
Congratulations on the book. That’s very exciting. I can’t grow geranuims very well here as I don’t have enough shady spots. My ‘Rozanne’ died very quickly in the last hot summer we had a couple of years ago.
Thank you – I am looking forward to the book. It was very hard work, but also very interesting. Geranium macrorrhizum Spessart is the one which is particularly tough and very good ground cover. In fact it is a bit of a thug!
Thank you Candy. I’ll see if I can find it.
Welcome back, Candy. The hydrangeas seem to be loving their “pots” so well done.The libertia are delicate and lovely – do they tolerate shade?
[…] I know I wrote about the hydrangeas before but I like them! and the flowers are starting to colour. When I prune them I stick the […]