The Stalwarts

                                                                           Rose Felicia 

I have trouble getting many plants to establish in the heavy clay soil here  - waterlogging, slugs and snails, overlush  growth of thuggish plants, which cuts out light for more sensitive ones are all problems. The Mediterranean plants I love, always find it hard. So I have a special feeling of gratitude to any plant which will come up year after year or will flower for months on end and keep the garden interesting, cheerful and reliable. 

These include, of course, roses which seem to love the clay, I have seventeen altogether, some were here when I arrived, others I have bought or been given so there's a wide variety. My favourites, perhaps are Mme Alfred Carrière, a pretty white climber that flowers intermittently all summer, and Climbing Papa Meilland, an enormous deep red rose with a fantastic scent. The climbing Papa P. is rare and this one peers over the yew hedge and again produces its astonishing blooms all summer. I have several scented pink roses, a Buff Beauty (buff), The Pilgrim (yellow), and a single, once-flowering floriferous pink one at the front of the house whose name I don't know.

Rose The Pilgrim

                                             

Then there is the geranium family. These can keep going, between them, from late March to September. They spread quickly but are easy to pull up if you have too many.  There is the early small cushioning Geranium sanguineum,  a sharp deep pink, the equally early G. phaeum, which can take over parts of the garden very quickly but is so beloved by bees, specially honey bees.                         

                                                                                                                                 Geranium sanguineum                                                                                              

 Geranium Rose Clair is a sugary pink, flowers all summer and spreads like mad; G. oxonianum is a slightly deeper pink but with smaller pointed petals. Towering over those is G. Psilostemon (don't ask me how to pronounce that), with its black-centred puce flowers. Johnson's blue is sky blue and Rosanne (not flowering yet) is a deeper blue with a white centre, a very sturdy plant which opens late and will flower until well into the autumn. 

                                                       

Geranium Rose Clair

                                        

Geranium Johnson's Blue

    

Geranium psilostemon

Iris sibirica Silver Edge is another plant that doesn't seem to mind the waterlogging. I've only had mine for three years but it is spreading and just one or two flowers stand out among the other plants. It doesn't  flower for long but is worth it anyway. It's blue petals are outlined in white - very elegant. 

Iris sibirica Silver Edge

 The Welsh poppies were given to me by a gardening friend when I moved in, 32 years ago. They are annuals and seed themselves generously all over the garden providing points of  interest and stopping places for bumble bees.  

                                 

Alliums also do well here and spread well with no effort from me. All sorts of insects visit them and they are always buzzing with life.

                                                 

Wallflowers are stalwarts too. I have two at the moment, both perennials: Bowles' Mauve is a clear bright colour and Red Jep a good mixture of reds.

                        Wallflower Red Jep                                       Wallflower Bowles's Mauve

Last, but not least is the Cardoon. Huge, silvery and stately, it grows in front of the yew hedge and provides a splendid centrepiece for the whole garden. It is plagued literally to death by enormous snails, which I have to pick off every morning and throw into the compost. I lie awake at night devising ways in which I can get the better of them. 

Cardoon in front and climbing rose Papa Meilland  peering over