My Garden in August

A few photos from my garden for August - lilies, cottage garden, sunflowers, lots of bees, fairies, and a few frogs.








Lilies

The most spectacular flower in my garden at the moment is lily Shocking. 

Shocking is a tall variety, mine are about 6 feet tall.

Shocking needs strong stakes to support the weight of those blooms, especially after rain, when the flower-heads become very heavy.

The very tall yellow lily on the left is Manisa. Manisa is about the same height as Shocking, but not such attractive colouring.

The shorter lily is Salmon Star. You can see that Salmon still has many unopened buds. It's later flowering than the other two.




I bought the Salmon Star bulbs because I like the colours...

I think salmon (king of the fish) makes a good symbolic companion for the mermaid too.

This is lily Scheherazade. This is another 6-footer.

The flowers on Scheherazade face downwards, rather like a Hellebore.

With a Hellebore, that is just a few inches above the ground, it's difficult to see the flowers. As Scheherazade flowers 6 feet up in the air, you can see the flowers with ease.

This is lily Forever Susan, a modest 4-footer.

The name 'Susan' actually means a lily: Susan (Wiki).








Cottage Garden

I only have a relatively small patch that I'd call 'Cottage Garden', and only a relatively small number of plants. This style of garden can be labour intensive.

In the photo at right are some tall yellow achillea, and tall verbena, and some mauve sidalcea.

Just below is a wide view. It all looks a bit of a mess. But that's the idea of cottage garden - a mixed community of plants all growing together.

In the photo below, the mauve flowers are mainly sidalcea. Other plants include - a couple of hollyhocks, an odd dahlia, some white leucanthemum, and petunias. Right at the back are a some sunflowers, a feathery stipa gigantica, and phormiums. The greenery which forms the background is evergreen bamboo..

Sidalcea

I've got quite a lot of sidalcea, mainly for the simple reason that this plant grows well on clay, and seeds itself readily.

Sidalcea is a very good plant for bees.

This is an unusual moth that I haven't photographed before.

It's Six-Spot Burnet, on a sidalcea.

(My previous collection of butterfly and moth photos is here: Butterflies).

Mystic Merlin

Mystic Merlin is half-way between a sidalcea and a hollyhock. They are all members of the mallow family.

I grow mystic merlin simply because it has such a wonderful name.










Gaillardia

This is the first year I've tried Gaillardia and I'm very pleased with it.

It flops a bit, and seems to need some support; perhaps I should have pinched it out.

Gaillardia is covered with flowers, which bees and hover flies love. It seems to be quite long flowering too.

Sunflowers


These are variety Harlequin.

Harlequin is not one of the super-tall varieties, which many people go for. Harlequin is about 6 feet. But I like the nice range of assorted colours that it produces.

Buphthalmum Speciosum

Buphthalmum speciosum is one of the best plants for bees, certainly on clay. This plant is also known as Telekia speciosa.

Some people might think Buphthalmum is a bit rampant. Some seed catalogues describe Buphthalmum as an 'impressive and stately border plant'.

This photo shows five bees working on a Buphthalmum.

This photo also shows how the centre of the flower turns from yellow to brown, and then resembles an ox-eye. In the US, this flower is also known as ox-eye daisy.

 Artemis

This is a new statue of the goddess Artemis with her wolf, that I recently acquired.

She's not easy to place with flowers. She's not exactly a shrinking violet; nor even a lily or a rose.

She looks as though she'd be more at home in a wood.



Fairies

Fairies normally keep out of sight, but during the past month fairies seem to have been popping up, in the most prestigious places - and across the world, in fact.

The BBC's web page for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show included a photo of a fairy statue. The page is here: Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (BBC)

A report on the show by gardening editor of Country Living magazine included a photo of a different fairy statue, and said ‘fairies seem to be obligatory’.

Also last month, and quite independently, The American gardening website Gardening Gone Wild ran a feature about Faerie Gardens, with photos of lots more fairies: Fairie Tales

To try to attract some more fairies into my own garden, I sowed a packet of 'Fairy Mixed' Annuals. 

The illustration on the front of the packet was a bit misleading.

The flowers which came up seemed to be mainly assorted annual poppies, but still very pretty.

Did 'Fairy Mixed' succeed in attracting fairies?

Yes, it did.

If you look very carefully you may be able to see the fairy...

In fact, I also managed to find a little home that the fairies had built, in a wood pile. They had fitted a little fairy door, and there was a little fairy watering-can parked outside...

Hugo

Just a brief introduction to my assistant Hugo.

Hugo is in charge of slug control, which he likes to handle personally.

Hugo likes to poke around in the vegetation, where he gets his own breakfast.






Wise Frogs

Finally, a few frog photos.

With Hugo around, frogs can take it easy.








Jung gives a wonderful psychological analysis of the fairy tale of the Frog King. Frogs and toads are important symbols, in dreams and fairy tales.

Here's a very spiritual frog.








Finally, a wise frog explaining a subtle point in Jung to myself, and to his froggy friend, over a cup of tea...

Related Posts

My Garden in July
My Garden in June
My Garden in May

More Frogs (March)
Fairies and Fate