Summer garden colour

Here are some of the flowering plants in bloom in my garden in June and July. 

A six-year-old honeysuckle (Lonicera copper beauty) growing over a 7' garden arch, very happy in the alkaline clay soil of this border.  It's alive with bees all day long at this time of year.    

Clematis viticella Black Prince, now a fluttering mass of these beautiful dark purple hanging flowers which are draped over a boundary fence.  Cut back hard to approx 60cm every February, this plant bursts back with renewed vigour every spring. The viticella clematis group is said to be resistant to the dreaded clematis wilt and in the five years or so I've been growing viticella plants I've not seen this problem.  This clematis is growing in a large, deep container and has thrived with an annual spring feed and compost top dress and regular watering in dry spells.       

 

Astrantia maxima, a beautiful woodland perennial which thrives in the cool, moist shade of a border overhung with bamboo and other much taller plants.  Its delicate white flowers glow in its dark green surroundings.      

 

I love summer bedding plants and the bursts of vibrant colour these annuals bring to the garden.  Here a fancy-leaved pelargonium (or bedding geranium) 'Chocolate Twist' and petunia surfinia 'pink star' tumble down a jardiniere-style basket stand.  Pelargoiums and petunias need full sun to thrive and flower and these are baked in afternoon and evening sunlight.       

Another pelargonium and surfinia arrangement in the same sunny spot, this time featuring the Victorian geranium Frank Headley, which I love for its decorative cream and white foliage as much as for its salmon-pink flowers.     

 

This is a lovely rambling rose called Super Fairy, a welcome present from my parents upon a visit to the truly amazing (and free to enter!) David Austin rose gardens near Wolverhampton last summer.  This plant has been thriving in a position of bright shade (and of course heavy alkaline clay!) for a year now, and has reached the top of a 6' fence.  As a result I'm hoping to be able to start to train it over an arched walkway very soon, where it will get morning and early afternoon sun.  It's healthy and free-flowering on a regimen of regular feeding, watering and spraying with organic pesticide and fungicide (which I started at the first hints of blackspot and aphid infestation!).              

Here is a very welcome insect visitor to the rose.  The bees seem to love its flowers as much as I do! 

Another clematis viticella, this one 'alba luxurians', which sports unusual white and green-tipped flowers.  It scrambles through the branches of a large apple tree ('Discovery' - hopefully more on this in the autumn when those apples should have ripened for harvest!).   

The curious little flowers of the houseleek sempervivum, probing their way out of a terracotta pot.   

Another sweet little flower stalk, this time on the very curious Ophiopogon nigrescens, the evergreen grass-like lily with black leaves.  It is an invaluable plant and though unassuming definitely one of my favourites in the garden.  In fact it's a star performer in dark, difficult places, where its spreading rhizomes slowly create dense black carpets topped with purple flowers in summer (you can see this process in action in the picture, as several pioneers march down a very shady and tucked away patch of border.           

A welcome burst of vibrant yellow from another star performer in my garden, sedum reflexum 'blue spruce', which began life as a tiny single specimen and now thrives in the various sunny locations I've simply pushed fragments of it into!  Here it cascades, appropriately, over an antique lead drain hopper given a new lease of life as a planter supported on bricks.    

Sometimes maligned as dull but in my view invaluable is the fibrous-rooted bedding begonia.  It thrives in sun or shade, does not need as much watering as other bedding plants and will flower its socks off until the first frosts cut it down.  Its colour range comprises white, pinks and reds, and its foliage can be light green to chocolate brown.  I love the contrast between the variegated ivy and dark begonia foliage in this urn, which sits in permanent shade.    

The other type of bedding begonia, the tuberous begonia, can be seen here, catching the sun's early rays along with two celosia plumosa plants, one purple and one yellow, to create another colour contrast.  The tuberous begonia has a much wider flower colour range and more complex flowers than the fibrous-rooted form, but it is more expensive, usually being sold in single pots.           

As I have said, I like to complement my garden plants with interesting objects and containers.  Here an inscribed foundation stone from a long-demolished Victorian building supports a pleasingly in keeping vintage planter.  A lovely blue-leaved hosta, sieboldii halcyon, with its purple blooms completes the picture, echoing the blue tones of the fescue (ornamental grass) behind.           

And finally on this mid-summer tour, another set of bedding in another vintage item pressed into service as a planter, this time upright pelargoniums and mildew-resistant New Guinea impatiens, united in shades of pink, in an old Belfast sink.