The summer sun shone round me.

The summer sun shone round me.

The summer sun shone round me,

 The folded valley lay

In a stream of sun and odour,

That sultry summer day.

The tall trees stood in the sunlight

As still as still could be,

But the deep grass sighed and rustled

And bowed and beckoned me.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Blue Rinse and Rollers or improving your nepeta.

I have always been smitten with the billowing knee high allée of nepeta seen in English gardens and it seems wholly suitable to repeat the effect here in our dry summers. 

 I have a two walled and paved walkways around the house where rose grow that need a dense hedging to create more definition and mid-summer interest in the peak of our searing sun conditions. Last year I planted what should have been “Six Hills Giant” which I had hopped should be more upright. The bees have loved it but I am not impressed.

Trawling through an old copy of English Garden magazine I read a great idea (sorry didn’t note who she was!) which was to roll tubes of chicken wire and let the nepeta grow through. What a great solution – I’m rushing out to try it straight away as they have just had a haircut and I hope to get a second magazine worthy display.

Where the fairy left his hat.

I love alliums for all the different stages they go through, particularly fun for us with little children in the family is the whimsy they show when they burst into flower.

Beautiful Butterfly Bush Buddleia or flowering this week in my garden

In the heat of high Summer just a few things are not only bold enough to withstand the blast of these days but seem to revel in the heat; Buddleia, Oriental lilies, Shasta Daisy and the Agapanthus are blooming like showgirls on a day out in Vegas!

One of the important records I shall make in the garden this year is to have something beautiful and useful (to paraphrase William Morris) in the garden every week/month of the year and the most important of these is to have something thing for the bees, dragonflies, butterflies and ladybirds. The great thing about this is that almost all of these “useful” plants have wonderful scent for me too! Buddleia likes well-drained soil –even if it’s rocky dry and wretched and thrives in sunny spots. I recommend deadheading which will result in more flushes of flowers and the plants can get scrappy and leggy so a good hard prune back 60cm (one-two ft) or so from the base in late autumn. This is also when I strike cuttings and as I have very sandy soil where these are planted I simply prune and select some good sized cuttings about the size of my little finger and pop them in the ground – by next summer they should be leafy and even flowering.

ArtLife in the Garden - pebble mosaic

Many of you will have seen Maggy Howarth's work as they often feature in magazines and Chelsea or Hampton Court flower show. I find something magical about the tones and intricacy of the work that by placing pebbles and stones you can create images with such movement and clarity to them. Oh for one in my garden! 

I have a step at the bottom of a stairway leading to the back of the garden that has lost its stone top so I shall try to make a small mosaic on that - commonly called lintel mosaics as they are so small and used to define an entryway. I shall be using Maggy's book for that - highly recommended.
I wonder how long it will take me!  All images from Maggy's web site - pop over and have a dream.

More snow in Summer - Literal and figurative!

Well almost! After some baking hot days last week we have been plunged into a very winter like chill, not soon enough to save the last of the peony flowers though as they are well shrivelled up now as well as some other bloomers. I hope the rain is good for the fruit trees as the apples are coming along-I shall post a fruit update later this week. It seems like only yesterday they were baby blossoms!  

 

Rosa Silver Ghost -planted last year has been lovely. Very nice form and has lasted well in the heat and the rain, which is very nice as many white flowers have been spoilt by these conditions and who can blame them!

                                      

Philadelphus Belle Etoile one of my all time favourite plants.

Darling Rosa Edna Walling - I do think she would have been very pleased with this rose, such sweet nature and a wild rambling way.

Rosa Wedding Day in a pot near the Secret Garden. Ammmmazing!

The ping pong rose or January Bouquet

 A mix of pink roses saved from the rain. A new rose for me which has done so well and I think goes so well with the other (perhaps more frowsy) blooms is sweet Rosa Pomponella is a Floribunda (cluster flowered) rose with small dark pink flowers in an almost pingpong ball size and shape. It has a neat dark green habit and at the moment is covered in bunches of blooms.