The week that brought the summer solstice also brought better weather. A few grey starts with occasional spells of rain but the cool breeze of early June has lost its edge, now there’s a warmth to the air. It’s the month of the Simmer Dim, the midnight twilight. At the witching hour still light enough to see the dark shapes of cattle grazing the fields on the island of South Walls, a mile or so distant across the bay. In the garden its standing room only, the only bare earth to be seen is where Jacqui is juggling plants. Moving some that are struggling, splitting others that are too big for the space.
A perennial that shares a long history with us has started to come into flower this week, Cephaleria gigantea. My father grew it as a cut flower on his trackside allotment, one of a row of a dozen that sat at the edge of Snaith, a small market town in the East Riding Of Yorkshire. When we bought our first home in a nearby village, a tiny end of terrace with a pocket handkerchief sized plot, a piece was given to two very green and novice gardeners. That piece of root has been split and re-split, a forty-three year journey, travelling with us through four gardens, two in Yorkshire and, counting this one, two in Orkney. Since arriving in Orkney it has gone off to other island gardens, one piece travelling to a garden on the small island of Graemsay, that sits between Hoy and the mainland town of Stromness and boasts a population of around twenty-eight. The flowers are borne on long stems and it can be a little bit leggy, here it reaches six feet, down in Yorkshire over eight. For this Orkney garden it’s a perfect bee magnet back of a border plant or an occasional ‘see through’ front of a border plant, that even in the most exposed spots, rarely needs a stake.
Another plant that has come into its own this week is Scots Lovage, Ligusticum scoticum, a native of Northern coasts. An edible member of the celery family that would once have graced the kailyards of many a croft. On the other side of the coin, a non native that really shouldn’t be growing here at all is Sedum matrona, a member of the stonecrop family. A lover of full sun and free draining soil that is, so far, surviving the winter wet and spreading happily in semi shade.
Welsh poppies are also opening, they turn up wherever it suits them, a favourite spot for them to germinate is beneath the cool shade of Hosta leaves. Candelabra primulas are also putting on a show, they’re well suited to both our garden and climate and we grow a few different varieties. A favourite is primula bulleyana, whose hot orange-yellows glow bright on dull days.
It can take a while for some plants to settle here, sometimes a few years before they finally find their feet. A rodgersia is a good example, planted four years ago, for the first two years a mound of foilage, last year a single flower, this year a half dozen spires of soft pink. One thing we have learnt is don’t be too hasty, if a plant looks healthy, leave it be and give it time.
The plants aren’t the only ones doing well in the garden. Where trees close to dry-stone dykes are hung with feeders, Wood mice have taken up residence. The dykes offer shelter and the feeders are an easy source of spilt food, husks and seeds dropped by Redpolls and others. Earlier in the week, beneath a front garden Rowan, I counted five individuals, dashing back and forth, between the safety of the wall and the risks of open ground, to pick up spilt grains. Their young, when old enough to venture out, have no such sense of danger. More than once, in broad daylight, we’ve picked them up by the tail from the middle of a path and returned them to stone-dyke safety.
Weather wise the best day of the week came on Thursday, the day of the Solstice, blue skies and sunshine. A bank of low cloud spoilt plans for an early morning sunrise photograph but later in the day, with the sun starting to edge westwards, a couple of frames were taken on a walk near the farm of Snelsetter. One of the incoming tide, the other of a roofless byre that once, through the long dark days of winter, might have housed a cow for milk and cheese or perhaps an Ox for ploughing. Days that, now the solstice has passed, will arrive all too quickly.
A garden in Orkney 
Well, I’ve just learned from this that I don’t have California poppies, Eschscholzia californica, in my garden, but Welsh poppies!
Seventeen years ago I begged a couple of seed heads from my neighbour’s front garden and they’ve popped up everywhere since then. I try and selectively spread the yellow seed heads, but the orange have survived our sudden January -14C cold snap almost exclusively.
I also read that they’re an invasive species here and it’s taken many volunteer hours to remove them all from Vancouver’s Stanley Park. I shall be checking my pockets and turn-ups before heading off to swim there from here on – don’t want to accidently reintroduce them.
As ever, lovely photos and descriptions of your garden and of Hoy.
LikeLike
Hi Penny, we don’t know where ours came from, the seeds must have been lurking here waiting for a chance to germinate. We had them down in Yorkshire along with Eschscholzias and for years I thought they were all California poppies. Apparently they are becoming an issue in some English woodlands. I had a look at the Stanley Park site, Foxglove and Dead nettle on the list as well, I wonder if these are all garden escapees from Europe or were deliberately planted in the park and then regretted.
Beautiful here today, we’ve just started a new project, a small stone dyke enclosed courtyard, early days and the jury is still out as to whether we have enough stone, we think probably just enough, fingers crossed!
LikeLike
Hi Gary and Margot,
Foxglove, deadnettle and worst of all ivy (called English ivy here) are all things that were planted into the ornamental part of Stanley Park in the early days, but the latter has become something that is a danger to the forest which takes up most of the park. Regular ivy pulls by volunteers doesn’t seem to make a dent in it. Likewise the blackberry, likely brought in from gardens by the birds, is crowding out the native undergrowth plants.
Apparently the ivy came attached to a sapling scion of the apple tree that Isaac Newton was sitting under when he had his ‘Aha’ moment re gravity. It was a gift to Vancouver from Lord Something-or-other in England and was planted near the rose garden. Doesn’t seem to have survived. Probably the ivy took it out 😉
Good luck with the stone courtyard. Hope there’s enough stone to make walls that will keep out any strong winds and leave you with a sheltered spot to sit and enjoy your lovely garden.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning Gary, and Penny too.
What fabulous photos. I loved the story of your Cephaleria colonising the world! I’ve got one too, not a giant, but a bee magnet indeed. As are my naturtiums and foxgloves, spreading their gaudiness everywhere and attracting bumbles.
I was in London this week, at the tennis. I used to live in London but I’ve turned into a country mouse- the traffic, the noise, the crowds, the heat! Yuck!
Glad to be home!
Cheers, Margot
LikeLike
Hi Margot, yes, we’re going for world domination with the Cephalaria, we had a plant sale a couple of weeks ago and they were the first to sell out. Today Orkney, tomorrow the world! My father would have been quite chuffed that a plant taken from his allotment forty odd years ago was still being grown in our garden and the gardens of others.
I find even the small East Yorkshire market town that I grew up in and then lived within a few miles of to be too busy now. Maybe just me but traffic wise it seems to have got so much busier than I remember. London would be a nightmare although I’d quite like to visit the museums and galleries, teleportation in and out would be ideal.
Have a good week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Gary we still have the Cephaleria cutting Jaquie gave us. This year rather surprisingly it is very short I’d say only 2 to 3 foot high. Can only assume it was the cold wet spring held it back.
LikeLike
Hi Pauline, it might just be the weather, we’ve had the same cold and wet start here and have plants that this year are much shorter and later than usual although the Cephalaria’s have all made six foot. Might be worth digging it up and dividing it in Autumn if it hasn’t been split for a while? Say hello to Tony for us, Jacqui sends her love x
LikeLiked by 1 person