Gardening.

Carole

Well-Known Forumite
Can anybody recommend any colourful and quick growing ground cover plants/bushes that flower in July and August?
Hypericum Rose of Sharon is good for ground cover, it has yellow flowers, quick growing and a long flowering season.

Alternatively, flowering perennials, I bought some lovely Penstemons from the man off Penkridge market a few years ago, they flowered all summer in shades of pinks, whites, lilacs and very quickly covered a large bed.
However I did plant them in May, by July they had spread.
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
Hypericum Rose of Sharon is good for ground cover, it has yellow flowers, quick growing and a long flowering season.

Alternatively, flowering perennials, I bought some lovely Penstemons from the man off Penkridge market a few years ago, they flowered all summer in shades of pinks, whites, lilacs and very quickly covered a large bed.
However I did plant them in May, by July they had spread.
Just googled penstemon, they're really lovely, I'll have to look out for some.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Hypericum Rose of Sharon is good for ground cover, it has yellow flowers, quick growing and a long flowering season.
This is exactly the sort of thing i'm after, thanks very much. Going to have to ring around now to see who has some.
 

Carole

Well-Known Forumite
Just googled penstemon, they're really lovely, I'll have to look out for some.

I absolutely love them, they last about 3 years then they get a bit woody, I think they are about 3 for £7 on the market.


This is exactly the sort of thing i'm after, thanks very much. Going to have to ring around now to see who has some.

Just make sure that you get the low growing ones, if that’s what you are particularly looking for, there are several types of hypericum. We’ve got a shrub version, grows to about 5 feet high.
 

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
Careful. The name "Rose of Sharon" is used for a number of different garden plants. Very different. Carole's HoS is Hypericun calycinum which is 1-2ft tall with large flowers and can spread.

Name is also used for Hibiscus syriacus, a shrub which can grow to 12ft tall
 

Bob

Well-Known Forumite
Can anybody recommend any colourful and quick growing ground cover plants/bushes that flower in July and August?
Forget me not - but beware it is quick and it will cover everything.

Rudbeckia spreads well but will take a couple of years to get going. They'll come back every year too.

Your not to late for some bedding plants from seed get down the garden centre and check the packets, you'll be fine still to plant anything that says June on it.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Forget me not - but beware it is quick and it will cover everything.

Rudbeckia spreads well but will take a couple of years to get going. They'll come back every year too.

Your not to late for some bedding plants from seed get down the garden centre and check the packets, you'll be fine still to plant anything that says June on it.
Our forget me nots are nearly finished now but they are a good cover and are easily weeded out when over::
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Anybody need any thistles?

Excellent specimens.

Free for collection.

DSC_0104.JPG
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Can you cook them ? (And please don't give me any fancy directions here, I'm looking for a few minutes Microwave job with a bottle of ACME universal sauce and perhaps a half hundredweight of Monosodium Glutamate.) :P
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Can you cook them ? (And please don't give me any fancy directions here, I'm looking for a few minutes Microwave job with a bottle of ACME universal sauce and perhaps a half hundredweight of Monosodium Glutamate.) :P
I could cook them.

And you could eat them raw.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I cut back all the Lobelia* and shredded half of it. It makes a nice blanket over the willowherb and thistles that constitute most of the new heap.

DSC_0106.JPG



I have another pile to do in the morning.

DSC_0105.JPG



* As I 'finished' for the night, I spotted about another quarter as much that I had forgotten about.

Tomorrow will be yet another day...
 

Bob

Well-Known Forumite
I’ve got it bad already!

Starting on the seeds, some of the veggies and flowers sewn! Pots of soil on every windowsill waiting for the tomato plants to poke through and propagators in the greenhouse which seems to be working well so far.

And I’m even looking forward to the return of Monty Don on Friday (recorded and usually watched with a cuppa on a Saturday morning)

2022 will be the year I triumph over the brassica caterpillars!
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
It's wet here today, but the last few days have allowed a good bit to happen. I turned over the 'new heap' in the old cold frame and pulled it all into one half, now that the volume has reduced, so I can start to add stuff into the empty half now.

I churned in a lot of winter/spring shreddings that had been spread on one of the plots, to the delight of the Robin who proceeded to reduce the soil fauna that I have so carefully cultivated. We also had to have a chat about safety around machinery...

I still have large areas to recover, but I can see some progress, at last.
 
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Trumpet

Well-Known Forumite
Sun came out so gave the lawns a first cut. Never fail to be impressed when the stone age mower that never has any attention starts first pull of the cord every spring.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Sun came out so gave the lawns a first cut. Never fail to be impressed when the stone age mower that never has any attention starts first pull of the cord every spring.
The mower I've used most doesn't have a cord so must be pre stone age.
 
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