The July cutting garden: Ammi and Daucus, beautiful umbellifers

And so we move into high summer and its proving to be a challenging one in the cut flower garden with high temperatures, strong winds and lack of rain. Its been hard after a cool wet spring followed by crazy hot temperatures in May, this year so far has been quite a roller-coaster. As in all gardening there are winners and losers each year but isn’t that why we love the challenge of it all. However this prolonged drought and likelihood of further drought spells through the summer certainly makes you think carefully about what you are growing and how you look after it. So lets get the negatives over first, sweet peas have been a bit of a failure for me this year and I’m not completely sure why but hearing others on social media saying they have struggled has made me feel a bit better. I planted them just before we had a late spring cold spell and they sulked a bit in the ground and then I had a really busy May with flower shows and at the nursery and I think I took my eye off the ball and they didn’t get tied in properly and some got damaged by slugs. Then we have had record May temperatures and dry spells and they went to seed quickly and got mildewed. All in all they haven’t had the care and attention that they needed and though I have had some flowers I’ve not had the armfuls that I usually get and I have really missed the colour and the scent. In fact I removed them yesterday and took the climbing frame down so will just go again next year.

My other fail was Didiscus, this was its last chance I think I’ve tried them the last few years but they are a real challenge. Straight off the germination rate is low compared to many other annuals and so already you have less to work with, though actually I had quite a few to prick out this year. They are truly slug magnets and many of my potted on seedlings got eaten even before they were planted out. I planted out after the frosts the few healthy seedlings that I had and they have all been eaten by slugs. So that’s it, despite its beautiful flower I think there are so many other lovely flowers that are easier to grow. I’ve replaced them with some gorgeous sunflowers. The other slug magnet in the cutting garden are Zinnias and mine have been mauled a bit but I think they are surviving and they are loving this hot weather and are just starting to get into their stride so I’m hopeful for them. So there you go a few honest truths about gardening, you are not going to get everything right, we are all time constrained and can only do so much and the weather is always going to be a factor and is different each year. But I always find that there are other things that maybe you have struggled with before that come good.

One of my favourite flowers of the year so far has been Ammi majus, so normally if we are talking about Ammi in the cutting garden I’m usually team Visnaga, I much prefer Ammi visnaga for arrangements and for cutting but this year I did a very early spring sowing of Ammi majus and got lovely large plants and I decided to plant them in my borders rather in my cutting garden and I’ve loved them. Tall and statuesque at the back of the border they have been a froth of white for a good two months and think they could be kept going for much longer if I was a bit more diligent about deadheading. I’ve really marvelled at the beauty of the flowers and did a little post on Instagram where I did a small video of a close up of the flowers and that has been such a popular post. I still find them a bit of a challenge to use in arrangements as the flowers are so big and wide. But they look great with Dahlias and other larger flowers. Ammi visnaga is just starting to flower now and I still love that too and hopefully will be using that in arrangements for a while now.

The other beautiful Umbellifer that is lighting up my garden in July is Daucus carota ‘Dara’ and how she is blooming and really coping with the drought. I did a focus blog on this flower earlier in the year to try and encourage everyone to grow it and wow I’m so glad that I did in this summer especially as it has been one of the annuals that has really just kept going despite the lack of rain. Its a good one for sowing direct but if like me you haven’t always got that free patch to sow into you can also sow it into seed trays which I did in early February. The trick though is to sow thinly and to prick them out quickly so that its tap root doesn’t get congested. I had loads of young plants to plant out and as I did with Ammi majus I also didn’t plant this in the cutting garden but rather in my new border but this time on the edge mingled in with Verbena bonariensis and honestly its been a real joy and I’ve decided I’m going to be growing annuals all over my garden next year. Daucus is the perfect mingler its good at growing through other plants.

I’ve been regularly picking from these and they just keep flowering, I picked a bunch so that you can see the range of colours from pure white, to pale pink and dark pink almost black. Gorgeous.

I’m letting some go to seedheads too which are beautiful in their own right and look great in arrangements also.

Godetia have been brightening up my cutting garden this month and oh what a beauty it is, look at this gorgeous big bunch of Godetia ‘Crown’ and it coincided with a few other lovely pink flowers.

Here with the more delicate pale pink Godetia ‘Memoria’, Cornflower ‘Classic Romantic’, Hesperis white, double Feverfew and Silene vulgaris.

 

Its prime harvesting time and flowers are coming thick and fast, the worry with this hot weather is that flowers go over much quicker so its important to keep harvesting and making the most of your blooms. Lavatera ‘Mont Blanc’ is another beauty starting to flower now and I’m loving its clean white blooms which I used in this arrangement.

With Cornflower ‘Mauve Ball’, Phlox ‘Sugar Stars’, white Oreganum, Verbena bonariensis, Leucanthemum ‘Wirral Supreme’ and a something a bit different, Campanula ‘Irridescent Bells’, whose buds match perfectly in this colour scheme.

In terms of sowing and growing there is not much going on in July, though saying that I’ve been pricking out my biennials and growing them on ready for planting out in the autumn. I’ve had a few challenges though, namely slugs again, who overnight munched through 2 module packs of Hesperis Purple and they also nibbled my Canterbury bell seedlings so I’m going to have to resow these. There is just about still time, for more information for how and why of sowing biennials see this blog. I’ve also done a late planting of some Cosmos, Sunflowers and Rudbeckia, planted in the place of my autumn sown annuals. I’d potted these on into bigger pots so they had developed into good sized plants before planting and I’m almost picking from them straight away. Hopefully I will be picking from these late into the autumn. Other than that its just watering, dead heading and picking my blooms. But its a big priority for me after such a busy May and June in my garden to actually now just enjoy it. This warm weather has enabled us to sit in the garden late into the evening and just be proud and relax in it. This year there have been lots of butterflies in my garden which is a joy to see and very excitingly we had a Hummingbird Hawkmoth on the Verbena bonariensis the other night which almost made me squeal with joy. If ever there is a plant for butterflies that is it and it will just keep flowering now until the frosts.

So after all your seed sowing and growing, just enjoy your garden,

Higgledy Anne

(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)