Planting Plans: Other planting pockets around the patio

After a week of weather that ranged from sunshine through rain and wind to hail, today has been glorious. An afternoon of pottering. Having netted the fruit cage last weekend I had to rescue a great tit that had managed to get in so one task was to try and secure it fully. 'Try' is the operative word - once the fruit starts to ripen the birds seem to still find a way of getting in. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing some weeding, deadheading, and then pulling up stinging nettles from the chicken run.

Around the edges of the patio away from the house there are a range of planting pockets sizing from miniscule to small. None as big as the border against the back wall of the house. Working from furthest away from the back door around the area that has the table and chairs: the first very small pocket of soil has 'Lambs tails' and Campanula portenschlagiana ' Resholdt's Variety' a blue low growing campanula (also known as Dalmation Bellflower) that should spread but doesn't here as it is in deep shade most of the day. Erigeron karvinskianus (Fleabane - what an unfortunate common name for such a chraming dianty plant) has self seeded into two further miniscule pockets of soil. This is one self seeder I very rarely pull up. It grows in the tiniest of cracks where you would think there are no nutrients at all. Once it starts flowering it doesn't stop until the frosts really hit in autumn.

White shrubby Potentilla

I don't know the name: I rescued it from a friend who was going to throw it out

At one corner of the steps upto the circular lawn, this Potentilla is already covered in flowers. It will keep blooming throughout the rest of the year. Below it I planted what I thought was a deep purple Dianthus (garden Pink). Turned out to be scarlet. Not a colour I find easy in a garden. Three years on it is still there. The concrete it appears to be growing against is actually a statue of a dove. I will talk about my statues at some other time.

On the other side of the steps is the Lady Fern pictured here. This is at the edge of a planting group that will come into its own in a few weeks time: Hemerocallis (Day Lily) 'Golden Chimes' and Heuchera 'Plum Pudding'. The latter accentuates the mahogany backing to the golden flowers of the Day Lily.

Between this planting group and the pond on a slope that takes the bed from the paving stones to the height of the pond and the circular lawn, there is a tall white geranium (one that I bought so hopefully can find the name somewhere) which was fronted by a couple of Japanese Painted Ferns (Athyrium nipponicum var. pictum). These ferns were not happy here so am moving them to a location behind the pond where they have more shade and will not be baked by heat off the paving slabs. I see from some reference points that these ferns prefer neutral to acid soil, so I will add some ericaceous compost to the planting hole for them to feel more at home! I have replaced them with Alchemilla Mollis (Lady's Mantle) - plants that had self seeded themselves elsewhere - and will review the combination later in the year.

The plantings in the pockets around the pond have been mentioned elsewhere. The first one has Hellebore Sternii underplanted with an Erica as described here . It is currently backed by

On the other corner of the pond is a grouping that is at its best late winter, with the violet adding to it in spring. Under the leaves of the Hellebore Orientalis, which is the main plant in this group, the 'sensitive' fern is now showing its form. I probably need to add something like a Diascia to scramble through the more permenant planting to add a hint of colour through the summer.

At the front of the pond I have three Corkscrew Rush which did have dwarf wallflowers planted between them earlier this year. Bidens, as mentioned in that post, are waiting for last chance of frosts to be past before being planted.

I will leave the other three beds, albeit small, for another post.