July Garden

I thought I would take you on a tour of the garden this morning. The sun is just coming out after a light shower so everything looks lush and green, and the newly mown grass smells amazing.

I’ve made a couple of improvements this year, one of which was to have the stone wall rebuilt. Part of it was bowing out alarmingly, and other parts were very tumble down. I’m so pleased with the work, and the care with which the builder placed each stone.

After the wall was finished, I cleared this bed, which had become a bit of a dumping ground and was full of weeds. It’s a tricky space to plant, being in dappled shade most of the day, and quite dry because of the trees. I envisage it as a spring garden - there are already daffodils planted, so I’ll add a lot more bulbs for next year. I’ve planted a few things - lupins ,roses,bergenia, hostas, moved a holly bush from the front and chucked a few packets of annual seeds around to give some colour while things assert themselves. I also put in lots of dahlias, but they’ve been a bit slow to get going. There’s still loads of couch grass, constantly poking up, so I’m pulling out handfuls every day. I guess it’s going to be trial and error for a few years with this bed - but gardening is a process and I’m looking forward to seeing what emerges.

Round the corner, though, the beds I made where the chickens used to live are becoming what I hoped they would be - a wild tangle of pinks, lilacs and purples. My main focus here is scented plants - roses, lavender, carnations and geraniums which now find themselves jostling for space with verbena, grasses and lupins. I am definitely not a minimalist gardener.

I love this space - every morning I go out to see the roses, which are fabulous this year, but right now, these daisies are jumping out like eager puppies as I pass.

As you can see, my gardening style is quite - well, let’s just say “relaxed”. I have a bit of a clear out in early spring which is when I do my main weeding, and before I plant anything new. Otherwise, its at the stage where i just leave it to do it’s thing. I pull out anything obvious that I don’t want to seed, and I deadhead the roses, but that’s about it. It seems to work.

I have adored fuschia since ever I can remember - those incredible flowers, like ballerinas en-pointe. I never cease to marvel at them.

I’ve got a few things growing in pots too. Herbs, more lavender (you can never have too much) and scented lilies, which have yet to flower. The original photo I was going to use here was quite blurry, so I’m using this one instead, which shows pots of rose scented geranium and sweet peas, and the glow of a patch of yellow loosestrife behind the trees.

Did I mention lavender?

The polycrub is producing well and we’ve been harvesting every day. There was a fantastic crop of broad beans and early peas; we’ve just finished the broccoli and are impatiently waiting on the next sowing to be ready. Still, there’s kale, beetroot and courgettes to tide us over until then. And tomatoes, of course. I’m delighted with these because they are grown from seed I saved from last year’s crop - and they taste delicious.

Sweet Marie de Bois strawberries - the taste of summer, and they do so well undercover. We get a small crop in mid June and a second flush later. I’ve tucked some salad leaves in the back here too.

And, hopefully, a taste of things to come - carrot seedlings poking through, chard, beets and Brussels sprouts growing nicely.

So, we’ve come to the end of my garden tour for July 2019. I hope you enjoyed it. Always a work in progress, as a gardening should be. Continuity and change, that’s the way it goes xx