Unwelcome guests in my garden

The hot weather is still going on here in Britain, the longest spell of fine weather in 7 years so far. I think we can safely say we deserve this weather, after many dismal summers and extremely cold winters lately. The hot weather has made some unwelcome guests reappear in my garden though, I haven’t seen them for a good few years and they caught me a bit off guard - I have an infestation of spider mites!

I have had a couple of hospital appointments this week, and the rest of the days it has been so hot I have just been lounging in my garden under a parasol and not done much except watering just before going in for the evening – usually as it is about to get dark. It wasn’t until today I realised that two of my dahlias were completely defoliated, and half of the leaves on my new, 3m tall magnolia have died too. On a closer inspection I found that there are spider mites just about everywhere, on all the crocosmias, on the dregea, on several of the roses and even on some of the fuchsias! This evening I have sprayed the whole garden with rapeseed oil and I will do another spraying in a few days and continue weekly until the temperature drops or we get rain, but I have not much trust in these fatty oil sprays, they haven’t been much good in the past. If you have discovered a good treatment, especially if you know of any systemic treatment that doesn’t have to be applied so often and is available here in UK, please let me know. The good weather is set to last, by that time it ends I might not have much more foliage left in my garden.

On my previous post I promised a follow-up post with more photos from my garden, my GBBD post on the 15th got too long to accommodate all the photos I had so here’s some more.

I got some dwarf sweet pea seeds as a present in May, they are called Little Sweetheart and there were 5 seeds with a small bucket of compost. Three of the seeds germinated and two of them are in flower so far.

Lathyrus ‘Little Sweetheart’.

Lathyrus ‘Little Sweetheart’.

Lathyrus ‘Little Sweetheart’.

Lathyrus ‘Little Sweetheart’.

Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead'

Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead'

In February I bought several packets of seeds, tempted by some colourful catalogues that came through the post. I bought sunflowers and poppies and both had to be direct sown according to the instructions. I waited and waited for the weather to be warm enough to sow my seeds, but it was late April before I could safely sow them. I sowed poppies on my shady side and sunflowers on my sunny side, a few seeds scattered around between other plants, 12 sunflowers in total and 20 locations for poppies but poppy seeds being so tiny I expected to thin them a lot eventually. I bought 3 different types of sunflowers and 2 different types of poppies. The seeds took forever to germinate, thanks to the cold spring we had, and by the time the plants got out of the ground, many of my herbaceous plants were well out of ground and getting quite large, shading completely for those poor, tiny seedlings. Only a few sunflowers and poppies have made it to large plants so this have been a lesson for me, not sure I will repeat the experiment unless I sow the seeds in pots indoor, despite the warnings on the package not to do so!

One of the poppies that has been successful is an opium poppy called Black Beauty. When I bought the seeds I only saw a photo of the flower and I thought it looked absolutely stunning. Looking at the plant growing I must admit it is a bit of an ugly duckling. I think these plants have a great resemblance to some of the weeds I keep pulling out!

Even though the flowers on the top look stunning, the whole appearance is rather weedy – or is it just me who thinks that?

The bud is spectacular though, just like other poppies it is amazing when they finally ‘pop’ and reveal what’s inside.

Some of them hang upside down until they have opened almost fully, and then they miraculously straighten up against the sun.

Look at that colour! Almost open now.

Papaver somniferum ‘Black Beauty’. Some of them are semi double....

....and some of them are double.

Definitely a beautiful swan on the top, I just wish the rest of the plant was a bit more pleasing to the eye!

In this hot weather, each poppy flower only last one day, sometimes even less, so it has been a challenge to take photos of them. I have come out it the morning in bright sunlight and seen another flower open, thinking I would take a photo of it in the evening when the light is better, and by the evening the petals have dropped! There are a few more of these plants dotted around that haven’t started to flower yet so I hope some of them will be the other type of poppies I sowed, called Cherry Glow - time will show :-)

That was the rest of the GBBD photos for today, I have some fuchsias and lily photos but I will make separate posts for each of them when they all are in flower, still waiting for the rest of the oriental lilies to flower and most of the fuchsias. Well, that is if the spider mites don’t polish off the whole lot before I can manage to kill them! Until next time, take care.

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UPDATE:
When I got out in the garden today these two beauties were waiting for me!

They are the other variety of my annual poppies, ‘Cherry Glow’, a single form, perhaps not as stunning as the double ‘Black Beauty’ but I thought I should add a picture of them on this post as these poppies will be only a brief appearance in my garden.