Thursday, October 15, 2009

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day October 2009



I am just back from a trip to Provence in the South of France. More of a pilgrimage, actually: I went to visit the plant nursery of the specialist dry gardener Olivier Filippi near Montpellier. His is an almost evangelical mission to educate us in how to cultivate a dry garden that has colour and interest all year round. October is no exception - here are photos of four plants in bloom that I cannot find here in Italy. The magnificent climber Podranea ricasoliana was in bloom with huge swathes of pink trumpet flowers mixed with the white of Solana. Cheerful red Epilobium canum had self seeded all around. The lovely plump shrub Leucophyllum frutescens with purple flowers would look very nice on my terraces. His Salvia microphylla is of an intense purple-red that is far superior to the ordinary red and blue that I have.
I have plenty in bloom today too, as these photos below show, but nothing that Filippi did not already have only bigger and better. Michaelmas Daisies, of course. Campsis vine flowering for the first time in my garden - I don't know why I find it so difficult when it grows like a weed for other people. Two plants that have flowered continuously since early summer and are still going now: Tulbaghia and Verbena Bonariensis and both of which mix very well with grasses and other silver dry plants.
Y

8 comments:

Helen Yoest @ Gardening With Confidence said...

Nice post. I wish I could say I just returned from the South of France! H.

chaiselongue said...

Lovely blooms! Thanks for identifying my Ceratostigma, which I then remembered was C. griffithii. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to Filippi at Mèze. We're very lucky as we're only about 20 km from there.

María Cecilia said...

Hi Ivonne, your trip to south France must have been great!! I would love to be there. I remember you said in and older post that many of your plants survived with almost no watering... amazing!!! Regarding to my wisteria, I have many in different places of my garden but this one has plenty of sun from the afternoon and I think the temperature of the wall stones might help because is the first one to bloom and it does magnificent, better than the other ones.
Muchos cariños
María Cecilia

Esther Montgomery said...

It's odd how perfectly ordinary plants are hard to come by - you mention Michaelmus Daisies. For years I have failed to find the old, tall kind. I saw some in someone's garden the other day and am wondering whether to pluck up the courage to walk up the path and knock on the door . . .

I hadn't previously thought of them as a drought tolerant plant - but, in the garden I saw, they are growing through gravel.

Esther

Anonymous said...

Wow - your California fuchsia is doing a lot better in Italy than any of mine have ever done in California!

Bloomin'Chick Jo said...

Happy Oct. Garden Blogger's Bloom Day! Lovely photo's!

Diana Studer said...

Podranea, Tulbaghia and Tecoma trumpets at the end. Good to see our South African plants flourishing in Perugia

Carol said...

Lovely blooms Yvonne... may all your new plants flourish and bloom profusely for you. South of France ... sounds lovely too. Carol