Angelina's Garden: shots, thoughts and insights

Hi GC,
Meeting you all here again is such a great and lovely emotion!
Merry Christmas and I hope you have a great New Year!
Before starting with the garden, here is my greeting card for you: a Chamaecyparis seedling from my husband's precious self-propagated stock, which he and daughter decorated and promoted as 'The Christmas Tree'.



And its actual dimensions on the table:

Cheers!

Now, I'll proceed with the garden.

This year the weather slowed me a great deal or even failed me at times, unfortunately. After a mild, dry and snowless winter, which even called for some emergency watering of the rhododendrons, the entire country was struck by a series of torrential rains, hailstorms and disastrous floods, which began in June and ended up in late October. We only had the rains here, no flooding and destruction, but I actually never moved on to direct sawing and the island flower bed in the middle of the lawn was left without annuals, except for some self-seeded cosmos. So my summer flowering was pretty 'decentralised' and sporadic, though beautiful here and there, which explains why I had to point my camera at interesting foliage plants more often.







In spring, I also created two additional flower beds but I only planned 'roughly' for them, which is the reason why one remained almost empty.
1.

I populated this one with dahlias and chrysanthemums and they made a nice display in autumn, but I can figure out that the dahlias in this semicircle made it only due to the excess of rain. It's under a huge chamaecyparis tree and both the roots and the branches prevent it from getting its proper share of water. It's quite sunny though, so next season I will move some of the taller ornamental grasses in a group here, as they were beaten severely by the rain in the open and sunny areas.
2.

This one is much shadier and a great deal wetter, so it couldn't comfortably accommodate annuals and I have decided to leave it to rhododendrons and hydrangeas. Next season I will slowly add something like a curved strip of interesting hostas, astilbe and heucheras to provide some variety. There is a bunch of lilies, which are performing quite well and I will complement their group with a red-leaf rodgersia and one variegated euphorbia this season.
The only annual and profusely flowering company, which I've tried in this shady location, is impatiens 'New Guinea'. They just love it here and get to be the size of a small shrub with huge flowers, but I don't know if I will be able to start them from seed. I've only propagated them from cutting, which I stopped doing two years ago. If I'm successful, I'll show.

Now... some first-time flowerers:

My latest and the longest flowering rhododendron, R. 'Hachmanns Charmant'


Hydrangea 'Ettoile Violette'


Variegated H. macrophylla

Variegated Hibiscus syriacus


An unknown day-lily from a Bulgarian forum-mate


And some general shots, sorry for the chaotic seasonality:







This autumn, I have replanted and completely reshaped the rectangular bed of strawberries, which falls within my husband's 'sancta sanctorum' items of inherited property.
Negotiations to even touch it were challenging and tough, but I made good progress within the season and ultimately even nibbled off some new area for ornamental purposes. The strawberries will be camouflaged behind a new plant combination, which I am planning really keenly now. It is quite likely that I open a new thread with the seeds I'm looking for, some seem hard to find, but II'll try and dig into some more traders before I pester you with pathetic entreatments.




And one of my old H. macrophyllas, which had turned stunning blue this season. My soil is acid, overall, but I haven't tested recently, something may have altered:



That' s all, and here is a link to the full album. Except early spring, I was just lazy to upload it.
Well, if anything else comes to mind, I'll add it.
I'm really enjoying the break of the holidays, I could read, dream, browse forums, test seed viability and review my photos over and over, as all out is covered with a thick layer of snow and wood is cracking in the fire beside me.
Hope you're sharing much of the same!
Angelina

 

Beautiful garden, Angelina.

 

hallo Angelina,
as ever, your pictures are delightful and there are always some things that I fall in love with. The hydrangeas look gorgeous as they obviously benefited from the damp Summer. It was a challenge this year wasn't it? My tomatoes were too wet and they got cold and the blight rapidly invaded in late August which put paid to a prolonged fruiting season.
I wish you a very Happy New Year and a great new growing season to enjoy,
so good to see you here again,
Jenny namaste

 

Angelina

All looks stunning

 

Wotcha Angelina

Looking lovely

I think you're the only GC member that's got a Tomato variety named after them I'm sure Spruce will correct me if i'm wrong

 

I know off a tomato called Maria @maria

I appreciate you asked for my advice

 

Absolutely stunning!

 

What?! so you have never heard of Starry Yvonne then ?

 

and Zigs has his begonia

 

and look what I'm called...
Creeping Jenny

 

Nice party here, ah? Ziggy, after your innocent intervention, chances are 9 out of 10 that I will lose my personality to a named tomato.
Never mind, I'll survive it.

Thank you for dropping by, I'm glad you like the pictures and whatever of the garden they show. I feel strongly tempted to design a tomato theme in a prominent location and send you an enlarged poster (or branded T-shirts).

Jenny, you always find the words to make a celebration out of my come-ins and go-outs!

 

We'll always be able to tell you from the tomato

 

found this Jenny bloom

 

what a lovely pinky apricot shade Spruce.....