Dear Garden Diary,

the front garden
16 June 2011

The front garden is crowded, lush, and colourful. When I excavated the site last year I uncovered a dozen or more hostas, the ligularia, and the bergenia. The hostas were divided and spread around, and are coming up nicely. The ligularia is also doing well.
The bergenia was dug out after it finished blooming because..no offense...but I just don't really like it. We have two others in the back which are both doing well and look nice; the one in front was so close to the footpath that it just got mangled under the pressures of winter life.

The empty space left by the bergenia will someday be home to a hardy geranium - a red flowering one. (For weeks I've been scouring greenhouses looking for a 'Johnson's Blue' only to change my mind ...there is already enough blue and purple in the front garden...) A red flowering hardy geranium will look nice tucked between the two Columbines: 'Songbird Goldfinch' and the Dwarf Common Columbine.
Throughout the garden, tucked in and around near the ferns and at the edge near the 'Sutherland's Gold' Elderberry I've added Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea and Foxy Hybrids Digitalis purpurea.

Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea

I moved the Alpine Primrose, mid-bloom breaking all kinds of gardening rules, and replanted it nearer the front steps by a couple of hostas and my dwarf globe blue spruce. I dug out a nice ball of soil around it, and it seemed to not even notice. I was gentle.

Behind it, a Japanese Anemone bupebensis and blue irises from the back yard. To the side, a Lady's Mantle, a division from H's garden.

Also from H's garden: "blue flowers from H's garden", or so they've been called so many times after I sketched a garden plan for Gerry. I couldn't think of the name Bachelor's Button or Cornflower when I made the drawing; I wrote: "blue flowers from H." I think to Gerry they will always be known as that, but to the rest of us they are Bachelor's Button, also knowns as Blue Cornflowers, and Mountain Bluet.

Bachelor's Buttons
also known as Blue Cornflower and Mountain Bluet

West of the steps the only one to attempt a bloom is the small Columbine. I don't know more details on the name because I can't find my bag of plant tags from last year (I'm trying to be better this year at documenting who's who...). Surrounded by giants hostas, St. John's Wort, Heuchera 'Coral Bells', a butter yellow iris (plant tag also in lost bag) I rescued from cold corner, and the sedum which won't bloom until autumn.

columbine

"There came a time 

when the risk to remain tight in the bud 

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

~ Anais Nin

bellflower

Cranesbill Geranium

Kingdom:     Plantae

Division:       Magnoliophyta

Class:            Magnoliopsida

Order:           Geraniales

Genus:          Geranium

Species:       G. phaeum

Illustration by
Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé  
Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz
1885, Gera, Germany
(copyright expired)



The violet-blue coloured flowers of the cranesbill geranium which thrives amongst the explorers in the University's memorial rose garden suggest G. himalayense but could be the more common Purple Geranium G. magnificum adopting a more blue hue from the soil. Maybe a hybrid cultivar - Jonson's Blue? 
G phaeum has rich wine coloured blooms, and I adore it. I would love to find one for the front garden. I believe there are already some hardy purple/violet/blue cranesbill already in the garden, but we'll have to confirm that after the excavation in the late spring.

The rose garden's cranesbill grows as a neat little mound of foliage to the north east of the bench. When it blooms it compliments in contrast to the roses around it.

• Cranesbills are also popular among the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail and Mouse Moth. There is already a fair selection of food for the butterflies in the garden, but I'd like to improve it.
• Some species are perennials and generally winter hardy plants;. they are long lived and most have a mounding habit, and some have spreading rhizomes. 
• Grown in part shade to full sun, in well draining but moisture retentive soils, that are rich in humus.