Persicaria microcephala "Red Dragon" that Nutcutlet gave me some years ago. The hard frost in April decimated it, I thought I had lost it, but it just bounced right back up again.
@fidgetbones - hurty backs are the pits! Your garden is a real wildlife garden! I too have persicaria Red Dragon which bounced back more vigorously than ever after being cut back by frost. I suppose as it is a relative of the dreaded Japanese K******d it is pretty tough.
Lovely the Loropetalum @Papi Jo That deep Burgundy colour is one of my favourites, and I would like more of it in our garden (Cotinus and Eucomis Sparkling Burgundy are the only similar things we have at present).
Does anyone grow Loropetalum in the UK? How frost hardy is it? I can't be bothered with horticulural fleece, etc any more. We are in the South East.
The part of my garden nearest the house (you can see in the pic with the deer) has a lawn and tends to get looked after most. The next bit with the eucalyptus in and the cornus is the hot bed. Then there is a pond. The top half of the garden is fruit trees and veg. Then I took over next doors garden. There are two old oak trees, which suck water out like crazy, and I made the wild flower bed there. I also planted some more small apple trees. We get a lot of wildlife. A moth survey last year produced 49 species including 3 BAP (biodiversity action plan species). We have frogs , toads, and smooth newts. We get dragonflies and damselflies, and it seems every cat in the neighborhood comes to hunt the voles and wood mice. Bats(3 species) hunt around the oaks in summer. A pair of ducks come to be fed every year for the last 5 years, starting around Easter and going on to June. then they disappear for another year. The roe deer doe came to live in the wood next door to us last year in lockdown and has stayed. There has always been a fox family in the wood. We are half a mile from the Erewash canal to the east of us. The A52 Notts Derby is just to the North(100yards) and the M1 to the west, so we shouldn't really expect too much wildlife, but we get it. We have an awful lot of weeds. I tend to clear nettles, brambles and docks and ivy in the flower beds, but the brambles do fight back. If you like tidy gardens, my garden would give you the screaming habdabs. That said, we get flowers for the house, a freezer full of fruit to last us the winter, and some veg for most of the year.
It keeps me busy. I think if I had had to live locked up in a flat for the last year, I would be in a right state. As it is, I go out shopping for food once a week, stuff gets delivered, I read a lot of books on my kindle, and if I get stressed still, I resort to colouring books in the middle of the night if I can't sleep. I compare myself to my Nan in the WW2. seven kids to bring up, holding down two part time jobs, husband away in REME, (Dunkirk, Crete, Egypt), food rations, and the odd bombing raid. What have I got to worry about?
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Does anyone grow Loropetalum in the UK? How frost hardy is it? I can't be bothered with horticulural fleece, etc any more. We are in the South East.