Philosophising…

The flowers reach new peaks of splendour. Sky high blood red hollyhock reign supreme in the back patch meadow. In the past week I’ve worked hard – dripping sweat hard – to dig out some of the errant grass in the meadow area. Today I dead-headed some self-seeded poppy from the railway path and sprinkled the seedheads over the open ground. Green fingers crossed!

The Beast’s beloved sea holly have absolutely exploded into bloom this summer – finally after a long wet cool spring and early summer they are basking in the July summer heat. The sea holly flower brackets were so plentiful that I had to add a bamboo support stake last week to stop it from collapsing after heavy rain.

The photo below shows the sea holly’s purple blooms with a swathe of orange flowered day lily in the background behind.

Another super development is the appearance of flowers on the rescued root stump of pink hydrangea, planted under the large cherry tree. (Think: deep dry shade – one of the most daunting of growing conditions!). I admit I had limited to fatalistic “hopes” for this plant, but the Malink was determined to carry on watering it week after week…. and lo and behold! It’s finally showing some bloom! Go hydrangea go!

There’s a second hydrangea under the cherry boughs – this one is doing a little better (is closer to the edge of the tree’s canopy), and sports a high bright white bloom. Another one of the flower guy’s big successes.

And farther afield, at the allotment, all is well. We’d left if for a week but everything is growing well. The raspberries are coming to the end (and loganberries are done and dusted), but we have blueberry just coming into fruit – a lovely treat! We harvested enough for a light summery treat with delicious greek yoghurt.

The very first blackberry are starting to show so we should have the first harvests in a week’s time. And truth be told – the yellow raspberries are coming into their own and do appear to be doing very well this year with large juicy fruits. Yum!

The rose of sharon bush at the allotment has come into bloom. It’s all a bit leggy and too tall, but I’ve been waiting for the flowers before a big hack back. In the meantime the flowers are pretty awesome – like little mini flower fireworks – and the pollinators are enjoying them too.

The Beast’s “field of dreams” (aka patch of popcorn corn plants) is doing well and the plants are growing taller. That patch is a new grow area and is sorely in need of a serious weed and also some nourishing mulch. We’ll drench the bed in manure this autumn, but that’s no help to the corn. Tomorrow I’ll have a go at weeding and digging out the grass at the end of the bed. Phewf! It’s hard work…

So all is well and thriving on the plots. Upcoming projects including completing dividing the bearded purple iris to spread out the early spring bloom down the railway path, as well as digging out and transplanting some orange flowering day lily once they’ve finished blooming. I love the lilies – they are so cheerful and easy to take care of – but they’re overcrowding the roses under the first pergola, so I need to move some out and spread the lily joy around the place. Another division project will be to dig up and space out the gladioli bulbs – but I’ll wait until they flower and show themselves, that way I can be organised about colours when I replant. I’ll need to dig out and move from the railway path the patches of crocosmia to make room for all this gladioli re-planting! Things sure are different from the days when there were more bare patches than plants, and that was only a few years ago.

I also need to prune the black and red currant bushes, but I checked the RHS guide and they recommend doing this in the winter period – so I will have to be patient! In the meantime there’s plenty of other things to keep us busy – including our plan to dig out and divide and rationalise the raspberry bed at the allotment – the final area of the allotment that we’ve not really dug into since taking over the plot.

But all that (and more!) is for some other day.

We’ve been enjoying watching the antics of the young fox family living in our neighbourhood. They love the back flower garden, which is gated and locked and thus kept safely a dog-free zone. Oh the vulpine bliss!

This year the young family have two young cubs, who have yet to grow into their big ears and long legs. Asleep with limbs stretched out on the grass of the downstairs neighbour’s yard, the young fox cubs look a little like miniature kangaroos.

The adults this year are very very vocal. There are verbal fox fights most nights.

Despite a poor year more or less with soft fruit because of all the rain this summer (such a change from previous summers in London which suffered with drought and high heat!), we have high hopes for the pepper patch – which last weekend we potted out into the patch cleared of winter grown garlic.

And actually, to be totally honest, not all soft fruit has been a wash out. The black currant bush in the back patch which grows along the railway path was a wonder this year and produced almost 3 kilos of fruit!! I’m going to take hard wood cuttings in the winter to propagate a few more bushes of this monster-producer!

July has been much the same as June – mainly wet and fairly cool for summertime. The plants need heat!! Our strawberries were soaked out, the raspberries grew well but were blown to ground by high winds and very heavy rains. We barely got a look-in at the loganberries this year. So very wet and unseasonably cool. Boo!

At least the blooms have been spectacular, with many plants which normally fade in the summer have remained in full and robust growth.

And the flowers at the allotment are also coming on well. Especially the big guy’s beloved sea holly!

So it’s not all been a wash-out…..

The flowers at the allotment continue to amaze. When we arrive the first vision is that of a field of poppies, growing in a neighbour’s lower allotment plot.

We were treated to flowers appearing on the Christmas cactus that we saved from the the side of the road. The plant I left outside all winter is now in flower. The cossetted plant that I kept indoors at the flat is doing well but isn’t in flower. Hhhmmnnnn….

The red rose arbour is – once again – absolutely dripping in flowers.

The damask rose is also doing well but we need to continue to treat it for black spot.

And most exciting of all, the sea holly has finally – after three long years – finally come into flower! How spectacular!

It’s all looking rather magical.

June 2021 has been hot but mostly cold. Growth seems about a month behind. So last year’s May strawberries were a feast of the month of June in 2021. Despite not bothering with putting up bird netting we had a good harvest of strawberries this year – with a three kilo harvest at one point which culminated in some jam making.

The clematis planted at the back of our seating area (at the top near the path to the pond) has done well and is in glorious flower. Malink is delighted.

By the third week of June we were able to harvest one of our plots of garlic. After digging up it needs to sit in the open air to ‘cure’ the outer skin. There are still two small plots of garlic at the allotment which have to be dug up, but since harvesting this first batch the weather has been cold, wet and rainy. We’ll have to wait for fair weather and the ground to dry again a little before we can lift the rest of our garlic crop. What a year!!!

But despite the poor summer weather, we were able to squeeze in a nice picnic dinner on the allotment one night after work. Smoked salmon, salad, crisps and wine. Yum!

Other good news includes the appearance – after 3 long years of patient growth – of flower heads on the beast’s beloved sea holly. There are fourteen flower heads all bursting into blossom…

Yeah, we’ve been up at the allotment a lot less this year than last – and though we’re happy there’s no more furlough, and a lessening of the global pandemic, we do miss being up there every day! But it’s all thriving and growing and blooming and fruiting and all that jazz. Even the foxes are happy!

Late May sees an explosion of growth, expansion, bloom. Dark blood red blooming peony along the railway path have shown themselves – a memory of Brenda and Jim.

The pale yellow columbine have come into their own under the far pergola – kept company by Dalmatian foxglove – also a creamy yellow flower with darker burgundy patches in the inner cone of the flower head.

The orange-yellow rambling roses are out in the woods at the corner, and all the rose bushes along the railway path in the woods and in the back patch are starting to swell with blossom.

The purple rose donated by Jo will be a veritable explosion – there are a huge amount of sturdy multi-bloomed candelabras forming and just waiting for it to warm enough to burst from bud to blossom.

But saying that, the white flowering simple flowered ‘shrub rose’ at the far corner has already flowered and gone over. I should dead-head immediately! (That whole corner needs a thorough weeding in point of fact.)

We’ve been eating rhubarb crumble for at least a month, and the lovage has also burst into life. As a long-lived perennial herb a clump of lovage gets stronger and bigger every year – this year it stands a good three feet high and is robustly healthy.

The red currant bush in the corner where we keep our water is starting to set fruit – little cascades of swelling green nubs. And in the terracotta pot that I filled with soil and grit and but in four currant stem cuttings in the autumn, they all seem to have set and look to be growing.

At the corner near the gate the iris this year are spectacular.

In the autumn I transplanted a large clump of sedum to give the iris more room and light.

And I must say, the iris sure are repaying the favour with a forest of flower stalks and very healthy expanded growth. This summer I can ‘thin’ this patch of iris out to further encourage new healthy growth – and will move the root sections I dig out to a new area further down the railway path.

Having repeating clumps of flowers helps lead the eye through a garden and creates calming continuity. You don’t necessarily want to repeat all your perennial flowers – but iris give a great structural and architectural touch with their cheerful spears and the explosion of purple flowers in spring is a joy to enjoy year on year.

Another hero in the back patch is the anchor plant which continues to thrive – and survived a hard cold, wet winter unlike the tender fuschia and salvia amistad.

It’s been a slow start. A very slow start. Cold and quite wet. Cold. And windy – or ‘blowy’ as the British weather forecasters are wont to say. (It’s been warmer in Ontario than London this April and May).

We have some tomato and peppers purchased at the local garden centre – but most still safely ensconsced in the garden shed.