Collecting Colors
How does your garden grow? Does it have too much yellow? Margery Fish, who is one of my gardening heroines, certainly was trying to protect her July garden against too much yellow. On the other hand, maybe you like yellow, and want more of it—like my husband, who thinks that you can never have too much yellow anywhere.
The question of colors comes up often as I wander around my garden. While I don’t think that it is the most important factor in creating a garden that is pleasing to the eye (I think shapes are more vital—more about that in a future email), it is the thing that most people notice first.
As you stroll through or sit in your garden this month, make a mental note of the colors in your garden. Do they make you happy? If they do, add more of the same next year. If there is not enough of your favorites, or the proportions of the colors are not to your liking, think of this when you plan your seed and plant order next year. Photos also help you to remember what you like and what you want to improve.
Highlights from the
Chelsea Flower Show 2023
The Chelsea Flower Show this year was certainly unlike any other that I have attended. Wild was in! For some years now there has been a movement at Chelsea towards gardens that look less like gardens and more like a slice of countryside, but this year it was full-on wild.
I have never seen a dandelion anywhere near Chelsea but this year there were several sightings right in the main show gardens.
Of course, that is the headline but there were many fantastic flowery gardens that I will be covering in the blog this month.
In The News: Whirlwinds of Gardens
The last month has been a whirlwind of travel, tours, and talks. I have really enjoyed the interactions after the isolation of Covid years. However, there has not been time to keep up with my Instagram, I am sorry to say. I hope that I will get some new cool photos up soon.
Great Dixter
The garden here at Northview has been buzzing with pollinators of all shapes and sizes. We have had a bumper crop of white lace flower (Orlaya), poppies, and cornflowers. We have managed to protect the larkspur in a few fenced-in areas from an overpopulation of munching bunnies. Nothing has been safe, including zinnias and marigolds. It could have been voles but watch this space for more on the love/hate relationship with the garden wildlife.
Right: Northview
Plant of the Month – The Regal Lily (Lilium regale)
The regal lily is one of the first to bloom in the garden. It is a 3 to 6-foot fragrant beauty. The flower is the traditional trumpet shape, white with a golden internal center, and brushed maroon markings on the outside. It is a lovely lily.
It grows best, like many lilies, with its roots shaded and the tops in sun. In hot climates it is good to surround the base of the plant with lower growing plants to help absorb rainwater and shelter the bulb from desiccating sun (especially if it is in late afternoon sun). It is an easy lily to start your lily collection. Once you grow this, you will want many more.
The main pest is the dreadful lily beetle. It is goopy black in the egg and larvae phase of its life cycle and then as an adult it’s oval shaped and bright red on top and black underneath. You need to squish and squash these in all phases of life. They hide under and among the leaves so you have to do a regular lily beetle check. Wear gloves and run your hands along the leaves. If they are present, you will see the characteristic notched bites out of the sides of the leaves.
The other major problem with growing lilies is that deer like to browse them. If you can find a fenced-in area to hide them away from the deer, it is so worth it. The other alternative is to spray them with an organic deer deterrent or sprinkle a granular one.
To quote our author of the month, Margery Fish, on regal (or regale) lilies:
“July is the month when regale lilies scent the air, and their delicious fragrance draws me so many times a day to the places where they grow. I don’t think that it is possible to have too many regale lilies and I plant out every seedling that I find. Seedlings appear all around the plants, sometimes in crevices between stones and in the path. The best regale lilies I have ever seen were growing in an enormous pot, so I put mine in raised beds, tubs and troughs, which they have to share with fritillaries, snowdrops and dwarf daffodils. It is a good idea to plant any spare lilies in pots, which can be sunk in flower beds needing interest in July.” (Page 82)
Book of the month:
A Flower for Every Day
I love an opinionated writer. I want to pick up the book and be able to hear them saying to me, “I just can’t stand roses,” or some other clearly stated stance. Then I can silently argue with them, in a nice, respectful, garden visitor way. We can have a conversation in my head that explores their opinions and investigates why they think that way.
Margery Fish is certainly a woman who knows her own mind on many topics, not least of all, gardening. She was a career woman back in the 1900s when working women did not have much clout.
She worked in Fleet Street in London, where she met her future husband, Walter. He was an influential, and slightly feared, newspaper editor. Reading between the lines in her gardening books, I think that Margery did not fear him; maybe she acquiesced and then did her own thing.
A Flower for Every Day is one of Margery’s gardening books that she wrote after the couple moved to the country just before the beginning of World War II. They bought a cottage in Somerset called East Lambrook Manor and started to garden. The couple had some differences of opinion about the garden as they developed it. I am sure that some of you who garden as couples can relate to this!
I have been to visit the garden and the owners have kept it up as much as possible in the manner described in the books. It is always a challenge to live in a garden that was so thoroughly chronicled. Margery was at the forefront of a growing flowery cottage garden movement in England that emerged slowly after World War II.
Margery loved her plants and was a great collector of improved selections of old favorites. People would give them to her and then she would grow them, evaluate them, and then if she approved of the garden worthiness and beauty of a plant, would pass it on to her vast network of gardening correspondents. I think that this is how many plants that we take for granted in our gardens today got into the trade in the first place.
For example, she says on page 77, “Two of my newer penstemons were found at Hidcote. One of them is a medium pink with deeper markings inside the flowers. To distinguish it, I called it P. Hidcote-laced.’
Margery writes from long gardening experience. If you want to become a better gardener and learn more about plants, the best way is to hang out with other gardeners that share your interests. See if you can find a few like-minded gardening buddies this summer. Gardening can be a lonely pursuit, but it is so much more fun with some others to help you learn. Look for a garden club that meets nearby or ask your gardening neighbors.
Note: I am not sponsored to promote books found in these newsletters. They are featured because I truly love them.
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If you would like to see photos of my garden at Northview and images of my garden travels, please follow me on Instagram @NorthviewGarden and @JennyRoseCarey
Enjoy this first summery month, gardening friends.
Bye for now,
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