Bag-tie time

Bag-ties are appearing in the garden as the seed heads appear and the blooms disappear. I will be able to find the plants when all the flowers have finished. I was pleased with my pot of Antirrhinums grown from seed this year. The seed I had gathered germinated well and now I am choosing my preferred light shades although I am sure the bees will have assured that the seeds are a good mixture of colours.

My yellow Cosmos self-seed everywhere, much to the pleasure of the bees, but I like to choose some of the more lemon shades and the doubles, as I think the orange is the predominant colour and might swamp out the variety. Anyway, it is always handy to have seeds ready to throw down if a space is free.

I did the same thing with the coloured Cosmos last year as this dark pink is the colour that tends to predominate from the self-seeded plants.

I should have thinned the self-seeded Cosmos but they are doing such an excellent job of shading my Caryopteris that I have let them be.

There was a beautiful tall Eryngium with bright blue flowers growing near us which I have been admiring and I managed to obtain a seed head.

The seed head is reminiscent of an artichoke but the hard outer coat was difficult to open, even with secateurs. Once inside though, I was so surprised with the softness of the downy seed heads. The seeds seemed to have been arranged within with such tender care, like eggs in a down lined bird’s nest.

The first seeds germinated after a few days, some in a pot and some outdoors. The seedlings are stocky and open like little solar panels during the day and close up in the evening. I will be planting these three on into larger pots as they develop tap roots that cannot be disturbed. Whether they survive to be planted out in the spring is to be seen but if it takes the Eryngium will survive if next summer is dry and hot.

Another plant with formidable roots is our Wisteria which is happily re-flowering in the heat.

The flowers attract the bees and especially the carpenter bees and the bumblebees.

It is also attracting the short-tailed blue butterfly,  Everes alcetas, Provencal Short-tailed Blue. I hope you can see the little tails although this one is female and so not blue. I would like to have caught the blue male but he refused to come low enough for me to get a shot.

The Japanese anemones and the fuchsia are spared the hottest rays of the sun behind a north facing wall which has spared them the searing rays that have burnt other plants leaves.

The heat is continuing and I often find myself in the garden very late at night savouring the cooler air. This year there have been several glow worms in the front garden. I was concerned that the drought might have had a negative effect on their numbers so I was happy to see them but too tired to get a good photograph. I have better photographs of them here if you are interested. We often find them during the day in the garden too, so it is a good idea to know what they look like.

Autumn in August

If autumn makes you think of falling leaves, then that’s what is happening in the garden now.

The grass is dried to a crisp, in fact it is tinder dry. There have been many forest fires in France set off by accidental sparks coming from farm machinery etc. The forest fire in the Landes region just south of here was started by a pyromaniac volonteer fireman and consumed 6,200 hectares of pine forest. Unfortunately, many other regions have suffered forest fires and the heat and drought continues.

It seems trivial after the fires to complain that my Liquidambar tree has yellow leaves that are carpeting the ground underneath it

The old plum tree that lost all its flowers in a late frost is now dropping its leaves. I hope this is its way to stay alive as there is no way to water these trees.

In amongst the desiccated grass there are still clumps of weeds like the cat’s ears that somehow manage to store enough moisture in their long tap roots to produce leaves and flower, and are much appreciated by the bees.

The Dahlias must survive thanks to their tubers and even manage to accept the scorching sun on their leaves better than the Hellebores which have become yellow leaved and exhausted looking.

The Japanese Anemones survive in the drought and the scorching sun. They are surrounded by a host of tiny bees and I should use them more but I find them so difficult to control.

I have patches of Yellow Cosmos in the front garden but these do need to be watered at the moment although I would say that they are moderately drought and heat tolerant.

It cheers me up to watch the variety of bees that they attract. This is a Megachile (centuncularis, I think). It is slightly larger than a honey bee and sometimes chooses a Cosmos already occupied by another bee knowing that the surprised bee quickly cedes its place. Pushy creature!

I can’t forget the honeybees!

I have not been working in the garden lately because of the high day time temperatures. We are now in our third period of “canicule”, that is a period of high day and night time temperatures that last at least three consecutive days. We have never had such a hot dry summer and it is forecast to last at least until Sunday.

I am glad for my pots of flowers near the door. This blue sage does well in a pot and I could always plant it our in the autumn.

My tub of Antirrhynums have been a great success and were very easy to grow from the seeds I collected last year. They attract the bumble bees that squeeze themselves inside.

My two Heptacodium jasminoides (or miconioides) have started flowering. They are in a very hot dry part of the garden but they belong to the honeysuckle family so I hope they will not suffer to much. Once in full flower, they will be covered with bumble bees.

I have made use of the sun and heat and cleaned up the wax from the cappings of the honey frames. You can see how I did it if you look zigzag at the collage above ( I have no longer access to the carousel feature with my free site). I forgot to wash the cappings of excess honey but the wax still came out clean. Today I am processing my friend’s cappings and I have remembered to wash them first!