What have you done in the garden today? Part 2

[ThreeRingCircus]

A continuation of the last thread.

Tipped down with rain all yesterday and is set to do the same today. The petunias in some of my patio pots are looking sad and soggy, I'm glad I ended up with some dahlias as well. Maybe a thread on 'what summer plants still look good if they're drenched' would be useful.

Oh that sounds like great volunteering @ErrolTheDragon. I’ve just retired and need to find something I can volunteer at. Rather fancy doing something outdoors.
I remember showing DS how to pop the seeds on Himalayan balsam. I feel bad about it in retros but it kept him happy for a good 10 minutes.

Just picked the first tomatoes. They’ve been grown outside and are doing brilliantly for once. Delicious.

There's almost certainly something at a local nature reserve or suchlike, @BestIsWest - I found this group via the Wildlife Trust.

@BestIsWest I taught my DCs to pop the seed pods on Himalayan balsam too, but combined this with the knowledge that the seeds are edible (a bit like aniseed) so I feel that balanced it out as they ate more seeds than they dropped.

Well it is another impatiens,@ErrolTheDragon but it's tender in most parts of the UK, coming, as it does, from Uganda. It's certainly not invasive here as we don't have the climate for it to seed itself. Most gardens feel privileged if they can keep it going. And if only Himalayan Balsam wasn't invasive and a detriment to our own ecological systems, because it's a beautiful thing. The escapee that's everywhere in these parts is skunk cabbage, a real 'the aliens have landed' plant if you come across it in damp woodland.

The dolphin pot base was a rather naff conservatory table. I bought it from a second hand dealer years ago, largely because I wanted the chairs which make lovely garden seats. It's been in a storage room for years until I saw the pot and serendipity kicked in. I'm so impressed with my own inventiveness.😊It's in a little garden that's mostly green so it's planted with adiantum aleuticum which is the most beautiful fern and lovely in pots (once it gets going).

@SarahAndQuack 'Bobbie James' is an absolute beauty. I'd forgotten about it but should get it immediately. I have just the tree for it.

Horrid day here so not much gardening is going to get done and no visitors either. It might be a day to tackle the bulb order and get on the waiting list for rare plants.

I saw a documentary which showed lovely flowering Himalayan valleys with the right amount of balsam in the mix, it was indeed lovely there! We just need to get something other than @InMySpareTime and her family to eat it!

I did a lightening bit of weeding between the showers. I've a paved area at the top of the garden and the cracks between the paving get very out of control quickly. I tend to leave quite a lot there because I like that look but a bit of ruthlessness is required as well. At the moment there are loads of foxglove and nicotania seedlings, euphorbia and Eucomis (latter are from years back when I grew some in pots). And all the normal weeds too!

Bobbie James must be what we had growing up the back wall of our old house. Gorgeous thing.

While there are some rose fans around I wonder if any of you can help me with a vague, half-remebered thing?

A few years ago (5ish?) I was watching (or possibly possibly listening to) a gardening programme that talked about somebody in the 18th century (or 1800s - sorry, I did say it was vague) discovering a (maybe Chinese) rose that is highly fragrant, with very small flowers, that blooms right into December. 'Highly fragrant' and 'into December' were defining characteristics. There's a national collection of them somewhere, and they wanted people to get in touch if they have one in case it's a variety not yet in the collection.

Well, I think I might have one, but can remember absolutely no useful details about what the rose type was called or where the collection is.

Any ideas?

The flowers grow in clusters, and it's a large shrub (but with quite small leaves), if that's any help at all...

I'd take a photo, but it's very wet out there.

That might fit the description of China Roses, though I thought their flowers were smallish rather than very small?
It sounds quite similar to my blush Noisette, except that's a small climber rather than a shrub, and it's a David Austin.

China rose is the closest I've found, but they are definitely bigger and more 'petally' flowers than mine. These aren't single but have a bit of a gap in the middle rather than being packed full.

Rain's easing so I'll try to post some photos in a bit - although weeks of wet mean it's definitely not looking its best at the moment.

We've dug up three gooseberry bushes we no longer want, & in the new bed have planted two climbing roses (Ginger Syllabub & Ruby Rambler), two hyssops (pink & purple), white valerian, bronze fennel, verbena Bampton, a salvia, a dianthus, black hollyhock, blue lupin & a borage.

Car for scale of bush, tape measure for scale of flower and flower cluster.

Plantnet thinks it's a French rose, but that doesn't quite fit. It has the white centre and prominent stamens, but the latter aren't yellow; the flowers are more than single; and the bush is about twice the size of a French one. And it certainly isn't once flowering. Even repeat flowering really doesn't do it justice - perpetual would be nearer the mark. It sometimes take a few weeks off around February, but pretty much blooms all year.

This gives a better idea of what it looks like when it hadn't been rained on for 3 solid weeks.

I’d be interested to know what that is @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn , it’s beautiful.

I’ve just started watering in the greenhouse and noticed somethings laying it’s larvae inside the leaves of my spinach seedlings - anyone know what it is?

Blush Noisette dates from around 1815 and I think the noisette roses get their perpetual flowering from a Chinese introduction, Chaplin's pink china, or some such name. Not all the roses David Austin sells are David Austin roses. I have Blush Noisette and it certainly flowers right into the first frost here, though it's late to get going. So it could be a noisette rose you're thinking of, Popcorn. It has the noisette habit of growth too but the colour isn't typical of the Noisettes. They tend to be pale pinks and creams. I'll have a look in the RHS rose encyclopaedia when I've got a moment.

That look nasty@SBAM. I don't do veg so I have no idea what it is but bleugh..

Aha! Thank you.

Yes, noisette perfectly fits what I remember of the piece I heard. Still not sure whether mine is one, but that's definitely the rose group I was thinking of.

If mine is one, it must be the earlier 'proper' noisette type rather than a later tea-noisette. It's big clusters of small flowers, rather than vice versa, and absolutely winter hardy.

It's thrown it down all day again :(

DH repotted another one of my tomato seedlings that seemed to have grown like little shop of horrors over the last week on the sunny bedroom windowsill!

Very little. Picked chamomile hyssop and yarrow. Grass needs to be cut but never dry long enough

There are a couple of what look like that lovely deep pink rose around here, and I've often wondered what it was.

I've recently read about Rosa "Sally Holmes" which apparently flowers all summer. It was certainly full of flowers at Wisley last weekend when most other roses had finished their first flush.

www.rhs.org.uk/plants/119748/rosa-sally-holmes-(s)/details

Obviously not the one your thinking of, but it is lovely. So I've ordered one!

That's a pretty one, PSdF.

Picked the last of the mulberries and the first ripe blackberries for a crumble

That is indeed a lovely rose. I’m just catching up with Friday’s GW from Tatton Park.

And one of them is Impatiens noli-me-tangere, literally Touch me not.

Another is Impatiens glandulifera, Himalayan balsam

The last of the mulberries!? I’m not expecting the first for at least another couple of weeks.