Summer Rambling Roses

I love June and July when the roses are out at their fullest. We have two beautiful rambling roses that we inherited with our garden and quite a few shrub roses that we've both inherited and collected along the way. I don't think a garden would be a garden without some roses. I love the ramblers when they come into bloom. 

One of the ramblers - Ghislaine de Feligonde - twists and climbs up and around the pergola where we sit out when it's sunny. This one buds in early June and flowers just the once. I love its dainty peach buds when the flowers first begin to unfold and then the pale yellow hues when they fully bloom. On a beautiful day or balmy evening it gives off gently perfumed wafts while you sit nearby. Its blooms only last about three weeks, but it is gorgeous and full while it lasts. 

The rose type has some history. It was a rose that won an award at the Bagatelle Rose Trials in 1915, but hadn't got a name. It's grower promptly dedicated it to Ghislaine de Feligonde: a French heroine of a current story, who travelled secretly to the trenches to bring back her husband. He had been left for dead in no-man's land, but she found him, brought him home and nursed him better. I like a plant with a good story! 

The other rambler - Pink Fairy -  brightens the front of the house and often waves across one of the front windows so you can still see its blooms from inside on a rainy or cool day. This one is in full bloom by mid June and early July and is always heavy and full with pink scented flowers and buds. It continues to flower relentlessly after that and can sometimes carry on flowering right through until February the following year if it happens to be mild weather. 

 Get a hot day or evening in July or August and its scent wafts and mingles with the honeysuckle - just lovely to the senses as you water summer pots and baskets on an evening or when you're coming and going in and out of the house during the day! 

Ghislaine de Feligonde

The flowering plants blooming and climbing underneath are blue campanula and pink geraniums - cranesbill.

Perfumed shrub roses in the border

Pink fairy - repeating rambler

The Magic of Foxgloves

July and there is something magical when the foxgloves are out in full bloom in the garden. I think this year has been one of the best for foxgloves in our own garden. You need to plant them for two years in a row when first planting out, so you can get flowers each year and then they are freely self sowing and pop up in the borders continuously. 

Foxgloves are wild flowers, but a favourite in the garden too, with their bell shaped flowers and tall spires. They stand out graceful and elegant in the borders bearing their tall and dramatic tubular flowers. Bees are drawn to them: it's fascinating to watch them climb up and inside the bells, gathering the nectar and then see them crawling back down, buzzing in and out - over and over. I could just stop and stare for minutes on end! 

The foxglove has many associations with folklore, especially fairies - it has folk names such as fairy fingers and fairy bells. In days gone by, they used to say if you wish for fairies in your garden then plant a foxglove where you want them to live. There must be lots of fairies living in my garden now! It was also believed that foxgloves could lure fairies and be used to break the enchantment and spells they put on humans. 

They are a poisonous plant containing digitalis, yet this substance is a potent heart medicine and is contained in a drug called digoxin, which is used to help heart rhythm and sometimes heart failure. It's a little contradictory it saves lives, but can poison people too. It's a drug that helped me once, so perhaps that's another reason I like them.

Foxgloves like to grow in woodland and dappled shade, they especially like growing in the hedgerows. Mine love the shady borders, but seem thrive just as well in the sunny borders too.