Is July really the dreariest month?

​It is. It is. It truly is!!!  

As I sit inside gazing through the window there seems to be no colour out there but ​brown! 

And grey!!   

Especially grey - grey sky, grey weather, grey garden How depressing it all looks, because even if there is green out there - it seems to take on the drabness of greyish brown, on these dreary, lifeless, windless Christchurch days in the low light of July.    

It's that lifeless pall in the air!
You can't get away from it - it's everywhere!
and no wind to blow it away!

Why is it that in spring Christchurch gets - wind, wind wind - ad infinitum from every direction when we would so love a balmy calm windless day to enjoy spring blossom - but no!!  It's all blown away by great dollops of wind coming from every direction!  Yet in mid-winter when we really need a bit of wind to blow away the grey dreary freezing murk of mid winter - what do we get?  ZILCH!!

 But there is hope, because from the photos I took in the Botanic Gardens earlier in this dreary July,    things did look like quite colourful - floriferous even!! 
We can thank the winter flowering Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) for that!   

​Having said that, how many of us actually grow the striking winter flowering  Red Hot Poker in our gardens?  Not many of us, I fear! 
​But I, for one, am toying with the idea for next winter because ..... 

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Red hot pokers Kniphofia are such a welcome sight on a dull day in winter.  And these exotic and striking plants from the eastern parts of Africa and Madagascar have transitioned to our temperate shores with ease.    Appropriately named Kniphofia 'Winter Cheer', this variety pictured above certainly does cheer us up at this dreariest time of year.
One of the nicest things about Kniphofia is that it obliges us by flowering in mid winter and then again in mid summer.   The summer versions are a different story.
​But in mid winter, it is Kniphofia 'Winter Cheer' which takes centre stage as it is such a standout flower  and so welcome  in July when there is nothing much else around.  
  Although native to South Africa, Knifophia does very well in New Zealand where in some warmer areas it has naturalised itself along road verges.  It does really liven up a road trip in mid summer especially when growing in conjunction with Agapanthus which has sadly naturalised to noxious weed status particularly  in more temperate northern areas of New Zealand.   Because the summer version of Kniphofia so often appears in conjunction with Agapanthus it has proved to be a very naughty plant indeed.   As they flaunt their vulgarity so blatantly that any hope of them integrating with our much less showy and more tasteful native species fades away.   
​Instead of integrating they scream at our dear little natives!!
How dare these blowsy showy foreigners upstage and take over from the authentic native roadside plants of our country!   But don't forget there were no such thing as roadside native plantings back in the day before we arrived.  Because there were no roads!  Roads came with us - the foreigners to this land!!
We can wring our hands in worry and chagrin that even our roadsides are being swamped by these gaudy foreign devils.  But will it help?  Sadly it would be all in vain to keep wringing our hands in misery - we must just grin and bear it!!  And why not make the most of it by actually enjoying these impolite ring-ins and realise that this colorful combination can liven up many a journey in midsummer.  It's really a pleasure to be overwhelmed with these flamboyant botanical runaways particularly when you encounter them on the long straight boring roads of Canterbury  flourishing in such tawdry confidence along our roadsides on a mid-summer road trip.  Red Hot Poker teams up with Agapanthus so effortlessly, as though it has just landed there to sparkle up your life,  as you drive along our country roads.   
Even though native plant purists might wring their hands in despair, the rest of us can enjoy and admire this picture which has taken to our roadsides with such reckless abandon.  We had better enjoy this picture while we can though, as the plant purists will want to root them out asap!  
If they can - as they will not be easy to root out which will anger the plant purists even more!!

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​Although much more modest than the Red Hot Poker, I was delighted to come across this planting of a variegated ground Ivy with primroses in Cambridge Terrace in a street garden close to the city centre in Christchurch.  Even though any sort of Ivy is often classified as a weed, this variegated version looks O.K. as part of a lively winter combination in July. It shows some imagination amongst our city landscape planners and hope that they are not always p.c.  It doesn't have to be all flaxes and hardy natives in high traffic areas in the middle of our city.  Even the shyest little primrose can be a winner in the most modest of ways    



​Subtlety can prevail!
and maybe the meek will inherit the earth!

Hardenbergia violacea - purple twining pea - native to Australia

And we can grow Hardenbergia which flowers too in
July in sheltered spots. It's not a N.Z. native plant, but is native to our closest neighbour - much warmer Australia. and look at it - with it's purple pea flower scrambling along the ground, perfectly happy in midwinter.  It has tough leathery leaves and apparently regrows from its roots after fire so make any wonder it is tough enough to weather July in Christchurch.

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Even though July, is a grey, drab, cold and really dis-spiriting month for gardening in Christchurch, and is everything that the  phrase  mid-July' conjures up in the midwinter minds of  southern hemisphere gardeners - cold dank earth, icy,  shivering.  But in the  northern hemisphere, all is colour and light in July because it is mid summer!  
 But at the bottom of the world, July is full of  cold damp mists rising from the river, the stark nudity of bare branches silhouetted against the white fog, sloshy muddy tracks, filthy shoes and no relief from chill until one day - the sun comes out!
And slants across the river even as the mists rise. 

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 By the time I went outside to try to take a photo of dreariness - everything had changed.  The sun had come out and was chasing away that dreary greyness.   Even though the bareness of winter branches was everywhere, the sky was blue with pretty fluffy clouds, so even though I tried to photograph it, dreariness eluded me. There must be hope!!

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​And then there were Hellebores!

And today we are out of July and into

August

My third son Matthew was born on the 1st August, so it is a month of joy and hope for me!