Gardening and dogs

So, what temptations have you succumed to this year? Don’t worry, I’m not being ultra inquisitive – it is your garden temptations that I am interested in.

This time of year, gardening catalogue after catalogue drop on my door mat, and increasingly via email too.  There are a few that I bin straight away – those that concentrate on bedding plants – they just aren’t my style.  However any that contain perennials and sometimes bulbs, get a lot more attention.

Gardening catalogues can be very daunting and I know I have spent a great deal of money on them in the past.  All sorts of plants need to be investigated.  Over time, I have learnt which plants do not survive in my garden and so I just go straight past those. 

This year, I decided that it would be useful to have a little more colour in the late summer and so was looking at Japanese Anemones when I noticed Anemone leveillei.  Although the flowers are much like the Japanese version, they appear in late spring and are a little shorter in stature.  So guess what is on my shopping list :). 

I also have ordered Cosmos, as usual.  I find them wonderful, flowering their socks off all summer in excahnge for some dead heading – a real bargin.  I usually grow on a few in pots so that they can fill in any gaps that may appear in the beds.

Fortunately, my garden is pretty full now, so there isn’t too much space for new plants. I think I’ll resist any more temptation for now – until the Spring at least, when I find out which plants haven’t survived the winter. But that is another story …………………….

Another jewel in the winter garden is the Hellebore.

Who would guess that these buds would in the matter of a few days turn into something like this?

The only problem with hellebores is that they bow their heads down and so there are only two ways to see them in all their beauty.  I love to hold their heads up to look into their sumptious beauty and then let them return to their downward view of the ground until the next time I want to stare into their faces. 

I cannot bear, this early in their life, to cut them off to show them in a bowl of water, though this is what I do if the odd one is knocked by a dog.  It is almost as if the dog knows that I want to spend more time staring into their beauty.

At this time of year there is a distinct lack of brigtness in the garden, but if you have planned for it, then there can be some real jewels to be found.

Under the willow, I have planted the cyclamen that I bought last year.  Their wonderful cerise flowers sing out in the dull day, demanding your attention.  

Cyclamen may be low growing, but at this time of year they are a real pleasure.  When there are more flowers demanding your attention, they might just get lost is the chorus, but now they have the chance to be stars.  It is amazing that their fabulous twisted buds unfurl into such bright jewels.

They are planted away from the normal canine paths in the garden, but don’t seem to suffer at all from the odd misplaced paw.