Neillia affinis | Davids Garden Diary

This week has been absolutely manic and garden visiting is now in full swing. We are so lucky to have so many lovely gardens to visit here in the Cotswolds. Last weekend was Eckington Village with 30 private gardens and Barnsley Village including Rosemary Verey’s Barnsley House.

My garden is rather smaller and insignificant by comparison but still just as lovely at this special time of year. Delphiniums just opening and buzzing with bees, their tubular flowers drawing them in.

The Sweet Peas now coming thick and fast and will be cut every other day for the vase. I just adore their scent and so do my elderly neighbours who love it when I knock on their door with a bunch every few days.

Rose ‘Roald Dahl’ and what a stunner! He is a big boy, our Roald, so big that he needs a bit of support to hold him up. I pruned him quite hard this year but he has grown even bigger! Such gorgeous flowers, and such healthy foliage, a real tale of the unexpected!

Next to Roald sits ‘Isn’t She Lovely’, and she certainly is! Pure white elegance and a scent you could drown in. There is something rather exotic and erotic about these modern roses which makes them so delicious.

I have never been a fan of Dutch Iris and these freebies are not only in the wrong place, they are taking up space for something more to my liking. Definitely coming out this year!

Not often seen or sold but Neillia affinis is a hardy deciduous flowering shrub that deserves to be in more gardens than it is. Nobody in my circle of gardening friends has it and I don’t really know why, it is attractive and bombproof. A kind friend gave me a piece a few years ago since when it has done well in the shrubbery with the bonus of these delightful pink flowers in May.

Rose ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’. This is a useful short rambler in that it is almost thornless, very healthy and not too vigorous. The orange buds open to small, pale apricot blooms with a yellow base, then fade to peach, pink and white. I have it covering a fence mixed in with Wisteria chinensis, hoping the two would be compatible and so far so good. The colour of the emerging and fading flowers look as if two different roses have been planted together.

Have a great weekend of gardening.

David

I definitely didn’t buy it so this beautiful Iris sibirica must have found its way here in a pot of something else as often happens. Delightful happy accident!

Neillia affinis, or Chinese ninebark, is a tough deciduous shrub for the mixed border, often overlooked, but it does well for me.. By no means a stunner like Abelia but I enjoy the late spring pink flowers and it’s relaxed habit.

This little rock garden plant sits in this pot year after year and does this in May and June when the sun shines. As soon as the sun goes in, the flowers close up tight. I have no idea what it is called but the ‘leaves’ look like a succulent. Lives outside all year round and seems to able to take everything life throws at it.

The Red Valerian, Centranthus ruber, is in full swing and I am pleased to have the various shades of pink as well as white growing wild in the garden. It seeds prolifically in the gravel paths and margins but pulls up easily so I don’t mind. It is one of those miracle plants that doesn’t seem to need any soil or nutrient to grow. You see it billowing out of limestone walls all over the Cotswolds at this time of year and, on closer inspection, it is thriving on absolutely nothing at all!

The Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’ continues to astonish me with it’s flower power and persistence. Possibly the hardest working plant in the garden, it literally never stops flowering!

There is a danger in writing a gardening blog, that people believe all areas of your garden must be perfectly maintained at all times which, of course, is never true! There is always a neglected corner where nature runs riot. Out of view, away from prying eyes, this is mine! I call it my comfrey patch but in truth it is my compost corner, a jungle which I hack my way through every few days. I’m sure we all have one, don’t we?!

Have a great weekend

David