New paving was started early summer 2009 and is still not finished (landscapers all working for clients!), plants were lifted last spring, sat in pots over winter when the job should have been finished by June and now half of them are dead.  A very sorry tale indeed.  Still I try to enjoy the few things that are flowering and enjoy new plant combinations by the wonderful ‘cheat’ of a vase.

This was picked on 26-June and includes (from top to bottom) an unknown umbellifer from the wild bit along the burn (cow parsley was my first thought but maybe Greater burnet saxifrage), Cirsium rivulare Atropurpureum (Plume thistle), Euonymus Silver Queen (much larger leaved than Emerald Gaiety), Hosta Ginko Craig, Geranium either Johnson’s Blue or G. x magnificum and Penstemon Stromboli.

There are two cheats.  Firstly, the conditions – the penstemon loves full sun and copes with dry soil while the hosta loves damp shade.  The rest are somewhere in between but they could all get along in sun and damp soil.  The other cheat involves the scissors.  In reality from tallest to shortest they are Cirsium, Euonymus (mine is wall- or rather fence-trained), umbellifer,  Penstemon, Geranium and Hosta.  The Hosta is generally in shreads by late summer but is looking fine so far.