I have been planning to write about my failures for quite a long time, especially about the roses that have not lived up to expectations, but curiously, and this despite the severe secheresse I am unusually optimistic about the garden progress. There are some quite nice things happening on the bank under the 'South Terrace'. It is a difficult area because so dry but at last things are beginning to clump up. These include various small artemisias, teucriums such as my favourite Teucrium fruticans Ouarzazate, and perhaps above all Ceratostigma plumbaginoides - the blue is brilliant, the leaves colour well in autumn, and above all it is seemingly not troubled by lack of water.It is also the case that the Prairie Garden, at least from the house and swimming pool has been looking reasonable, and this despite the many weeds. Earlier on it was the gauras that saved the day, followed by michaelmas daisies and the various grasses which come into their own as the summer progresses. I recently acquired a few more grasses including four miscanthus, one with the marvellous name Dronning Ingrid, these incidentally from my favourite 'vivace' nurseyman, Bernard Lacouts, whose online catalogue is a 'must'. Encouraged by the partial success I am hoping to make a major assault on this area in the weeks ahead in an effort to get the weeds under control, but also to try and fill the many gaps. Increasingly I believe that this process of close planting is the key to Gersois gardening, the problem being that unless you are very rich it takes a great deal of time.
But what of the failures? The so-called Gravel Garden in front of the house, and thus in a very prominent position, still worries me greatly. I have made lots of mistakes. In the beginning I cheated by just placing gravel and peat over rather compacted clay. This of course has been disastrous: too wet in winter and too dry in summer. Moreover the peat came with an invasive weed, this not really my fault, since the peat was quite upmarket, but it did not help matters. Entirely my fault was the planting of oenothera speciosa with the disastrous results that I have described in a previous blog; and I note the doyens of dry gardening in France, Clara and Olivier Filippi, no longer cultivate it. There is also a thyme, which one I am not sure, that has proved to be too invasive, while other varieties have not flourished. I still think that the idea of a gravel garden was a good one, and again I am hoping to improve the situation before next year, partly by acquiring plants that are more solidly clump forming, because at the moment it lacks any kind of form.
Another failure remains the so-called shady, west facing border, for the obvious reason that it is not shady enough, since in summer the sun gets to it by about 2pm. It is not all bad. I am surprised and delighted how successfully the alstroemerias cope, though they appreciate a little bit of watering. Amongst the hydrangeas the most successful is H. quercifolia though I am not quite sure which variety mine is. The anemones I will persevere with though they do wilt, but I am giving up on the phloxes, and even more reluctantly on the cimicifugas, a plant I love in almost all its varities, but have never really grown well.
