I’ve just come back from a few days in Turkey and was looking forward to seeing a good display from all the asters in the garden. Some are almost there but the promising buds on most plants are refusing to open. I’m sure they are all fully open at this time in other years. Is it because of the long dry spell we’ve had?
Some garden visitors yesterday said they hadn’t seem such a good display of verbena anywhere else. I’ve no idea why the plant likes my ground as much as is does, in fact its a mixed blessing for me, I have to remove barrows and barrows of it in order to stop it completely swamping everything. I try to keep it confined to certain borders but every now and then some pop up in the yellow border.
More signs of rabbits as I wandered round the place re-acquainting myself with everything. The cat not doing his job again. And, oddly, one large pot of Salvia microphylla seems to have been stolen. Its obviously possible that many other plants have been taken over the years but how would I know?
I have some asters out. Aster pyrenaeus Lutetia , A. dumosus – was wrongly labelled, so no idea which, but pink end of purple. A. novae-angliae PURPLE DOME didn’t get to flower last year, and it’s not in bud this. The wild ones A x salignus are out all over of course.
I think it’s a lack of consistent rain – but I do water mine sometimes. None like drought very much. The Aster amellus forms are late too. I have A. amellus PINK ZENITH out finally. So perhaps the initial late start to this year has also played a part.
I’m slightly surprised I don’t get plant thefts from the front garden in Twickenham as most of it is in pots and in flower. Those bar code tags in garden centres set the alarms off – I know because I’ve done jobs and stowed the plastic tags in my tool kit to bin from home and it’s set off supermarket alarms. But it’s all very expensive kit as I know from previous involvement with bar-coding. The electronics, the printing etc.
If all you’ve lost is one plant you are not doing badly. An annual stock-take might help. Very much a bind I know. But perhaps in late winter or another quiet time.