A few friends have asked me how my garden is getting on, and I have been taking photos of it over the past couple of months, but just haven’t got around to blogging about it. It has been a weird year weather wise. The spring weather was quite late in getting here, then we had a very dry period, particularly while we were away in Belgium and Holland in early May. My garden was gasping when we got back home.
But since then we’ve had a lot of rain and wind to contend with. In Scotland we didn’t get the really hot weather that they had in England and Wales earlier in July, we’ve been getting one good day of weather followed by three or four bad days, sometimes feeling more like November.
The plants are coping though.
Most of those photos were taken in May so the garden looks quite different now, but I’ll leave those photos for another post!
It’s lovely! Really full.
Peggy,
It’s all that rain!
A real established garden, so different to when you first moved in there.
Jo,
It’s amazing how quickly it became a proper garden and attracted birds.
I do so enjoy the garden tour, and I’m eager to see what your garden has been doing in July and here we are, almost August. Does Jack help out in the garden? What kinds of tasks does he like to do?
Always curious, when it comes to your garden,
Judith
Judith,
No Jack doesn’t help in the garden, apart from cutting the grass, which he hates, so he is happy when I dig more and more grass away for planting space! He likes to look at plants and gardens but isn’t at all keen on the work involved!
It’s a beautiful garden, so lush and full of color. I have a purple clematis very similar to the one in the photo. You’ve made a wonderful garden!
Joan,
Well it’s getting better but like all gardeners I’m never quite satisfied, there’s always room for improvement!
Beautiful plantings and colours, I love the flowers that are at their best in early summer, the lilies, lupins, columbines.
Do you have any peonies? and pinks? many gardens in my area have them in bloom in early summer.
Another plant in many gardens here is Nandina (Heavenly Bamboo) with its fresh green foliage that turns scarlet and provides winter colour.
And Agapanthus with its soft blue flowers in summer. It’s hardy enough to stand the frosts we have and doesn’t seem to self-seed here the way it does closer to the sub-tropics.
I think a list of my favourite must-have plants would number a hundred!
Valerie,
Me too, I have so many plants and flowers that I love. I had Agapanthus at the old place, in a tub, it was supposed to be coming with us but we couldn’t fit everything in the two removal lorries we had so they got left behind. I planted a couple in the garden here but so far they have only grown leaves. I think they prefer a restricted rootball so I should put them in a container. I also planted peony roots (Sarah Bernhardt) and so far only have leaves, planted too deep maybe? although they are close to the surface I think. I have some pinks, they’re a bit untidy though, I should trim them. Nandina, I should definitely add to the garden, thanks for the idea!