Today is Midsummer Day. I found it difficult to get very excited about that, given that it was the summer solstice three days ago. I don't know which is the key event to celebrate, but it can't be both. It was blowing half a gale, and cold enough when I went out after breakfast that I needed my fleece, and my fleece hat. That's pathetic, for midsummer. I derived some consolation from the thought that at least I was not in the middle of a fortnight's sailing holiday and stuck in some small coastal town, where we had looked at the only museum and there was nothing left to do except lie in a bunk drinking tea and eating custard creams, waiting for the depressing moment when the Systems Administrator decreed that as it had dropped back to Force 5, gusting 6, we'd be OK to scuttle downwind to the next port for a change of museums.
The SA put the trellis back up. This was not very convenient given the strength of the wind, on the other hand it was not at all convenient trying to squeeze in and out of the greenhouse door with the trellis lying in front of it, and the SA wanted to get the job done in the morning to allow for an afternoon devoted to watching the Grand Prix and the cricket. A rope around one of the uprights allowed us to haul it back to the vertical, and the SA clamped it to one of the new posts, mounted this time in a Metpost, bolted it fast with bracing sections of extra timber, and then fastened the other end. That had to be a bodge, because the second Metpost had hit concrete and gone in at an angle. The SA was rather apologetic that the repairs were not very elegant, but they solved the immediate problem of access to the greenhouse, so I wasn't grumbling. I can always wrap rope around the lower sections or something if it looks too awful, when the plants have died down. Apart from having to buy the Metposts, all the rest of the repairs were done using odd bits of timber from stock.
I planted out my new Hemerocallis 'Whichford'. Some of the existing varieties in the borders have scarcely flowered at all, due to infestation by a gall midge that attacks the flower buds. According to the RHS advice on the subject there is no proven chemical treatment available to amateur gardeners, and the only solution is to pick off the affected flowers to reduce the population in subsequent years, or grow resistant varieties, those that flower later when the midge has done its stuff for the year. I'm happy to see that 'Whichford' is on the list, but that doesn't help me with the plants I've already got. Hemerocallis leaves aren't honestly all that exciting, and if some of my present clumps are never going to produce more than two flowers then they might as well go to the tip, sad as that would be. But maybe a chemical treatment will be identified. I did try Provado a couple of years ago, but it didn't seem to make any difference.
The technique of planting Allium among Japanese anemones has worked, at least for year one. The anemone foliage has not grown too tall yet, so that the purple balls of the Allium flowers sit above it, while their tatty leaves are hidden. For the experiment to be a total success the bulbs have to be able to build enough strength to flower again next year, which won't happen if they resent having their leaves shaded. Still, so far, so good. I read the idea in a book by Graham Stuart Thomas, so it ought to work.
Just down the hill from this charming mixture the large shrub rose 'Fritz Nobis' has blown over. I did not mean to grow 'Fritz Nobis', which makes a big plant, with a once only display of double pink flowers followed by a good crop of red hips. I'd ordered 'Fimbriata' from Peter Beales, which is a tiny, dainty thing with fringed edges to its petals. Somebody couldn't have been concentrating on what they were doing, and sent me the wrong one. I suppose the names are very vaguely similar. The stems of 'Fritz Nobis' have formed a great round woody ball at ground level, which has swivelled visibly in the soil, allowing the entire shrub to tip forwards. I asked the SA if it would be possible to prep some Y shaped supports, and then come and pull on a rope next week while I crawled around under Fritz, equipped with goggles and heavy gauntlets, and attempted to heave the whole thing up again and prop it. I would rather do that on a dry day when the ample foliage is not going to dump vast quantities of water on me, on the other hand it can't wait long, since it is lying on top of a small conifer that I'm rather fond of, and that has taken a lot of years to reach its present diminutive stature (it is a Tsuga canadensis 'Jeddeloh', and it has made a little round bush with a depression in the middle of it, like a birds nest, which is what it is supposed to do).
The novelty rose 'Hot Chocolate' in the front garden has come out while the leaves of the Berberis 'Orange Rocket' are still orange, and the effect is as lively as I hoped it would be. I did remove the flowering stalks of some self sown Stachys lanata, that were shading out the stems of the roses, and a giant biennial self sown yellow Verbascum that was growing into one side of the Berberis. You have to be vigilant, combining herbaceous plants with dwarf or recently planted shrubs, or the shrubs can be overwhelmed or spoiled.
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