Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - August 2016

As the garden slides into late summer we are having extremes of weather here in the borders of Scotland Beautiful sunny hot blue skies are quickly followed by wet windy and cold weather the very next day! But the plants are standing up to it and carrying on regardless. This year the prairie bed in the front garden is really coming together and the quickly sown annuals are filling the empty corner on the patio with lots of bright colours.

A mixed packet of Nigella (Love in the Mist) has provided lots of jewels that have brightened up an empty corner

The mixed nNgella seeds have produced some lovely singles and doubles

I love this light blue one

Agastache 'Black Adder', a lovely plant I hope to have available in the nursery
next year

Astrantia 'Snow Star' which has flowered for months in it's shady north border

Centranthus ruber var. Coccineus also coping well with the shady north border, this one benefits from a
 dead head and will usually give a second flush of flowers to the end of summer

Lamium maculatum 'Beacon Silver', a great grund cover plant under this big Elder. The silver leaves
are much more pronounced in shade and brighten up a dark spot

Bellium bellidioides, an alpine curiosity with blue daisy flowers.  I first came across as a child and spent a lot of years
trying to find again, eventually stumbling accross it a couple of years ago. I now have a healthy clump of it in one of
my alpine troughs.

Borage, a beautiful blue in the borders, great for bees and will hapily self seed around the place, try the
white flowered one for a bit of variation

Cirsium rivale 'Atropurpureum', a tall clump forming perennial
loved by the bees

Eryngium x zabelli 'Jos Eijking', there are many Eryngiums on the market these days, but for me this is one of the best,
good height, lovely blue and copes with my high, cold garden and clay soil

Geranium dalmaticum, great for ground cover on any soil and sun or shade. Grows to about 12 inches and covers
itself in pink flowers all summer

Hosta 'Pandora's Box', a tiny Hosta, perfect for alpine troughs, which
is where this one lives, with it's variegated foliage and mauve flowers
it stands out despite it's size

Lewisia cotyledon, a seedling I grew quite a few years ago, it has so far coped with wet winters in the trough,
ideally should be covered in winter, but often the trough covers blow off and it survived

Malva moschata, the Musk Mallow, a pretty plant for the border which will seed around enthusiastically, there is also
a white variation which wil also cope with my colder garden conditions

Primula florindae Red form, a specially selected plant by myself from a
 batch of seedlings, the deep red flowers are also scented and will cope
with damp to we sol in sun or shade

Rosa 'Eye Paint', a shrub rose with small red flowers and a white eye

A striking Sempervivium which I have no name for, it has these
 big yellow flowers in summer

Aconitum carnmarum 'Bicolor', an interesting alternative to the usual
deep blue aconitums

Clematis integrifolia 'Rosea' which I grow in a big ceramic pot

Echinacea 'White Swan', this is the first time I've successfully grown Echinaceas, they much prefer
the more sheltered garden in a valley I am in at the moment

Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern', the colour fills the whole petal as the flower opens out

Gaura lindheimeri, until now I'd never grown these, and am blown away with them,
this is their second year and they are covered in flowers

Leucanthemum 'Esther Read' with a bit of editing on the back ground

There is nothing cheerier than the humble marigold

Or Nasturtiums, these guys are scrambling about the edge of the patio under and over everything

Part of the prairie bed in the front garden which has been very successful, at the
moment it is a riot of blues, pinks and whites with the Gaura, Echinops and
Echinacea

Triosteum pinnatifidum, another shade loving curiosity with it's fuzzy white seedheads

So a wee wander around what's looking good in the Quirky Bird Garden this month, what's looking good in yours?


You can see other garden blogger's posts here on May Dreams Garden blog

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