The good weather finally broke last week and showers and bright spells has been the order of the day since then. Everything in the garden has taken on a fresher look and growth is surging ahead at full speed.
The Camellias that had shed their flowers in a hurry with the heat are now making a surge of growth so it was a good time to prune them into shape as they were again taking over the whole bed. I want to make them into a hedge if possible but the growth is so vigorous that some drastic pruning was called for. It gave me a chance to use my new pruning saw, as some of the branches that needed removed were over two inches thick. When the job was finished there was a pile of branches over three feet high that I will have to find some way to disposing of.
The Trillium Rivale seedlings decided to produce one flower each this year and it is interesting to compare the different colours and patterns on the flowers.
One in particular caught my eye, a plain flower with purple streaks on the petals. All the others have purple spotting on the petals, and some are so heavily covered that at first glance they appear to be purple.
I continued to plant out alpines in the raised bed where spaces appeared either from failures over the winter or where plants had been allocated too much space.
Spent a morning grading the Primula seedlings and all the plants that I don't think were good enough to keep were given to A.G.S for their plant sale.
I staged a display of my new Lewisia Hybrids at the A.G.S. Show in Dublin last weekend and got a silver medal. Maybe gold next time! A whole day was spent potting on Lewisias from 6cm pots to 12cm pots. These are the plants that have been selected for breeding purposes and have good flower colour and shape or some other qualities like compactness that I need in the hybrids.
Hybrids are nearly always sterile which makes life difficult to progress to the next generation without using a bit of manipulation and some ingenuity. Fortunately at my age I can still muster a little bit of both.
Some of my new plants are absolutely beautiful and that is not just my opinion, as I am judging by the numerous comments of people at the show. Everybody thinks that their geese are swans and it is a good idea to get opinions from complete strangers as they are more likely to tell you the truth, even when sometimes it is not exactly what you want to hear.
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