Melting Point!

General Interest

After a week or more of dreary grey weather, dull miserable days of low cloud, evenings darkening earlier than we had become used to, season of mists and all such, today we were brought back in a flash to those scorching days of mid-summer. The temperature rose to 25C in mid afternoon and it was in the low 20s from early morning so that by lunchtime I felt I had done a day’s work and was well and truly worn out. I did very little work in the afternoon but took a walk around with the camera as a let’s-see-how-the-garden-is-looking exercise.

First, a few views. Click on the first image to start a slideshow:

My favourite plant of the moment is a colchicum, C. ‘Nancy Lindsay’. Along with a little species colchicum, C. parlitoralis, it is the first of the colchicums to flower here each autumn.

Colchicum ‘Nancy Lindsay’
Colchicum parlatoris, a small species which I grow on a raised bed, on the left and Colchicum ‘Waterlily’, an excellent double-flowered colchicum which is just appearing and will put on a good show within the week.

Sedums are all into flower at the moment and are a great attraction to the bees who can seem to be mobbing the flowers at times. Our conditions seem to suit them very well as they thrive here and are easy to increase through cuttings early in the summer. Those with darker foliage are especially attractive and ‘Red Cauli’ which also has red flowers is probably the favourite of recent years here.

Sedum ‘Red Cauli’ with its very attractive combination of dark foliage and bright red flowers.
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, ‘Matrona’ and recently purchased ‘Chocolate Cherry’
First flower on this monkshood which we bought earlier this year: Aconitum ‘Cloudy’

Finally, those other bits and pieces which caught my eye as I walked around today. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, light showers through the day and it will be very welcome. This hot weather doesn’t suit me and the garden also needs rain very badly.

Published by Paddy Tobin

A keen amateur gardener. Interested in wildflowers with a particular interest in native Irish orchids.

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14 thoughts on “Melting Point!”

  6. Paddy – Thank you for your regular blogs – great photos of the garden each month & plant information. I so look forward to the “next” one & it’s been great to receive them all during the lock-down/restricted months past. You & Mary should be so proud of the garden created & so well maintained. Hopefully an actual visit & not just a virtual visit will be possible one day again in the not too distant future.

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    1. Hi Anne, Hope you are all keeping well. It has been a long drag and with a time to go yet. We continue to be careful in our lifestyle, going out more but on our own and not to meet with people. We miss the freedom to simply get up and go at a whim, visit gardens, meet friends etc and hope to be able to do so again soon.

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