The Regent's Park

      There are many beautiful gardens in London and when I arrived there on my week stay the visit to the Regent's Park was in my schedule. This 166 hectares park is mainly open parkland with gardens, a lake with a heronry and a boating area, sports pitches and children's playgrounds. 

the formal garden

There are several public gardens with flowers and specimen plants as the Queen Mary's Gardens, the formal Italian Gardens and informal English Gardens.

the informal English garden

Some words about the history of this Royal park. In 17th century it was set as a hunting park, known as Marylebone Park. The Prince Regent (later King George IV) ordered to create a Royal park in the area. The park was opened to the public in 1835, for two days a week. There was a big pond in the park but on 15 January 1867, forty people died when the ice cover on the boating lake collapsed and over 200 people plunged into the lake. Then the lake was subsequently drained and its depth reduced to four feet before being reopened to the public.

I liked very much the Queen Mary's Gardens in the Inner Circle. The gardens were created in the 1930s, bringing that part of the park into use by the general public for the first time. 

The site had originally been used as a plant nursery and had later been leased to the Royal Botanic society. I had lovely time in the Queen Mary's Gardens, taking photos of many roses nicely blooming in this autumn sunny and warm day. It was a treat to sit there on a bench, looking at the plants, flowers and roses and feeling their fragrance.
More about roses in the Queen Mary's Gardens in my next post. 

I've noticed many vases and beds with different flowers, their selection and color surprised me. The combination of dark green and silver, pink and light green, dark red and purple, yellow and blue, etc, was unusual but beautiful. Look at them!

I spent four hours in the park and think that the professionalism and skills of gardeners and landscape designers can be clearly seen in the Regent's Park. What do you think? What combination of plants or what landscape did you like? 

Thank you who wished me a nice holiday, it was actually wonderful time. I've met with my friend blogger Helene and her smart cat. Helene's garden is full of blooming plants and we had cups of tea and coffee looking at her flowers.

Clematis of This Summer

            I want to tell you about my experience in clematis growth this summer and to think what has turned and what was unsuccessful.
In May, when clematis started to grow, I fed them 2 times with complete mineral fertilizer 15-15-15 (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium). First buds and flowers appeared on Clematis "'Rouge Cardinal", which grow near Actinidia. Since there was a lot of fertilizer Actinidia began also to grow and bloom beautifully, it leaves turn pink (second photo, on the right)

On other trellis clematises "Jakmani" and "'Rouge Cardinal" grow together. I used to read that it was not recommended to plant clematis close to each other, because they do not have enough place to feed on. I do not know whether it is so but clematis "Jakmani" began to blossom much later, it fell behind by 3 weeks. 

I think there is nothing wrong with that: firstly one of them was flowering then they were blooming at the same time and finally when one withered the another continued to blossom, and a trellis was covered with flowers from July to early September.
The other three clematises were transplanted to a new place in last year fall. In the spring, none of them showed signs of life. I dug up their roots and made sure that they were still alive after the winter, but the buds and leaves did not grow. What could I do? I started to intensively spray growth stimulator the roots and dry stems of clematis "President", "Justa" and "Miss Bateman". 
As a result, in early June, "President" began to grow but did not blossom at all. A light blue Clematis "Justa" grew very low, about 30 cm, bloomed beautiful blue flowers in August. A white Clematis "Miss Bateman" is very moody, it firstly rose very tall and had some large white flowers in mid-August.

I like clematis very much. What experience do I have?

I realized that it is not helpful to replant clematis in autumn before cold winter, it greatly weakens a plant. Also it's better to plant clematis in a distance each other. 
On the other hand if you have warm climate and warm winter without snow, you probably can replant clematis at any time. And if you have little space in the garden, you probably can closely plant them.
 
What do you think about my experience? How do you grow clematis?

Monarda in My Garden

This year I grew two varieties of Monarda. This is red Monarda didyma hybrid 'Fireball' and Monarda 'Pink Princes' that is light-purple and a quite high plant. These plants are rare in northern gardens, are not very popular. 

 Although it's a modest plant I think it deserves more popularity. Common love for spicy flavoring herbs and other aromatic plants increased the interest in Monarda, as the leaves are very fragrant and the taste of Monarda leaves adding in a tea pot is similar bergamot (Earls Grey tea). 

 

I've noticed that not only people love Monarda flowers and leaves but they also are helpful for garden inhabitants. This plant produces a lot of honey nectar. I've found out that its quite decorative faded heads with seeds are useful for birds in winter. Birds peck seeds and insects hidden among the withered flowers.

All photos were taken in August

What variety of Monarda is growing in your garden? Did you taste tea with Monarda leaves? Thank you!

P.S. I'm on holidays now, I will answer all your comments when I come back!

Guess This Rose

Guess what is this rose?
Such a question I asked myself when the first rose bud blossomed. A label on the stem said:  "Ground cover Rose" and nothing more.

I like the petals of this unnamed rose: they are bi-colored, crimson-red inside and white outside! Opening buds especially look beautifully, they are almost white, a red side of petal is tightly closed. When opening a red internal side of a petal appears.

When the flower is fully open, it looks completely different, with a lot of crimson-red petals and a white center with yellow stamens.

Who knows which variety of rose is it? Maybe this rose is growing in your garden? Help to find the name of this beautiful rose! Thank you!