The Paeonia rockii in the garden is looking superb. The flowers are as large as side plates, each white double bloom marked with a great central dark blotch. The shrub has reached a good 1.5m tall and across, and while in its first year I was very excited to get one flower, this year they number in the dozens. I haven't even counted them. It is larger than the one in the border at work, and flowers slightly later, perhaps because our garden is cooler.
In the island bed, the flowers of one of the last remaining tree lupins have surprised me by opening in two-tone pink. The buds were yellow, and I was expecting yellow flowers. The pinks are slightly muddy, but go quite well with the lupin's neighbours. I have only ever seen yellow and blue tree lupins, and wondered vaguely if this colour break was significant and I should contact Thompson and Morgan in case it could be the start of a whole new series of pink ones, but it's probably not that unusual.
At the front of the same bed, I was pleased to see a blue herbaceous lupin appear. I grew a couple from seed several years ago, but failed to appreciate the size the plants would reach, and planted them far too close to the front of the bed and other things in it, so they had to come out. I saved some seed, but didn't sow it the following year because there was so much else to do. Lupin seedlings regularly appear in the bed, but there was no way of telling which were tree lupins and which the blue ones. I kept meaning to go back through my notebooks and the Chiltern seed catalogue to work out what species the blue one was and buy some more seed, but now a plant has reappeared. I'd like to know what it is anyway, and will save and plant seed this time round, since it seems a useful plant, tolerant of dry conditions and poor soil. It was a pity I planted the original one in the wrong place.
I'd like one or two more yellow tree lupins in the centre of the bed, so had better keep my eyes peeled for seedlings. I was briefly tempted to buy one from work, but that would be an act of weakness.
It is not all success, since the Vitis coignetiae that was climbing up the birch tree near the conservatory seems to have died. I've vaguely thought for a couple of weeks that I hadn't seen any leaves on it, and that despite the late season I really should have, without going to peer up into the birch to check. Today I did, and looking right to the ends of the vine still can't see any trace of foliage. That is a nuisance, since it had reached a good height and I'll lose around three years starting again. I have no idea why it died, except that the pile of builder's spoil I asked it to grow in is not very nice. I thought that being deep rooted, vines would cope, but apparently not. The spoil heap is a truly horrible environment, and around half the things planted in it have failed, either immediately or later on. The birch tree, which seeded itself there, looks very healthy, so fingers crossed. I have checked in the past that the angle of lean on the trunk is such that if it fell it would not land on the conservatory, which would be particularly inconvenient since the firm which manufactured it has ceased trading.
In the bottom lawn precisely two blue spikes of Camassia quamash have appeared in the long grass. That is another disappointment, since I planted either 25 or 50 bulbs, but certainly more than two.
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