Thank you builders

 Just to show you why I deserve a gold medal, having made a garden at all.

Some of you may remember when I dug out the one foot edging border at the front of the house how much rock and concrete I removed (by the bucket load).

Like the rest of the plot our lawn is laid on rubble and something extremely crunchy!  Cinders?  Coarse grit?  Every time you put a fork or trowel in it you get a nice crunching sound.

Ken tried to put in a new rotary line spike.  The plants are so tall now where we have the old one there is a perpetual fight between flowers and sheets.

He started with the idea of just hammering it into the ground - we both knew it wouldn't work but he is such a Pollyanna.  Hey ho, struck stone.  We prodded all around the area with a spike and continued to hit stone and came to the conclusion it was over to digging mode.

The hole is 20 x 30 cms and 50 cms deep.  He removed approximately the same volume in brick, stone and slab. 

Come for a virtual visit

Just sharing today's photos - or some of them - the rest are in the web album.  I love July and England ............ when the sun shines!

Davenport Farm, Ainsworth

We got very dilatory about visiting NGS gardens last year and are even worse this year.

We managed to get to our first one on Saturday 6th July and, truth be told, that is because it was on the doorstep.

We have done Davenport two times before so it is nice to watch a garden develop year on year.  It is a lovely one to do - small but interesting and does great cakes and teas!!  It is also opposite Arthur Lane Garden centre so you can pop in there for a visit and a bit of shopping not to mention an ice cream afterwards.

This is their own description for the NGS site which  covers it nicely:  No more pigs and chickens! Farmyard redeveloped into 1½-acre garden. Now we have lawns, trees, shrubs and glorious herbaceous borders. Climber strewn walkway to lily pond and deck area. Newly planted orchard and raised bed vegetable plot. York stone patios. ‘Old stone folly’ now the white garden for 2013

I bought two huge astilbes (old man's beard)  for £4 each from the garden along with two thalictrums (rue) for £2 each - absolute bargains and precisely the four plants that were on my hit list to finish off my 'new' border.

I am hoping the astilbe is pink rather than magenta but I am not fussed as long as it isn't white as I have a ton of that already.  As I said these were lovely plants - huge and healthy and just ready to go.  

The rue is only a baby - you can just about see it behind the Bowles mauve (into its third month of flowering).  The rue will make about four feet in height when it gets going. This variety is thalictrum delavayi - the usual one.

In my north west facing border (and boggyish) I have got Thalictrum 'Elin' which I bought from Kiftsgate in 2009.  This tops out around eight feet tall and is a stunner. Not quite in flower yet so I'll share it here when it is.  

I nearly 'came to blows' with a stroppy know-it-all who simply didn't believe there was a rue that tall.  He just kept poo-pooing the claim and repeating "never gets past about four and a half feet".  That's the trouble when two know-it-alls meet in a garden!

I will put up a Davenport Farm album on the web, so seek it out from the link on the right if you want a look.

At its best

This is probably the week that my garden is at its very best all year.  I have planted the back garden for a summer show as this is when we are here so it isn't great in Spring and it has pretty much waned by September.  Because of this I do keep adding to the web album fairly frequently right now but don't post here necessarily.

That said, I thought I might share a couple of today's with you.

I think this is Iris Spuria and it has finally flowered!  We visited the Cotswolds four years ago with some friends and they were overflowing their beds at the B & B they were staying in - the iris, not the friends - .  I asked the owner if I could snaffle a couple and was told to take as many as we could dig up.  They knew what they were doing - we couldn't hack them out of the ground.  They were in baked clay alongside a concrete edging, bordering a gravel drive in high summer. My friends bought me a trowel and we had another go.  We gave up at two or three of them, brought them home and planted them.  I confess to having moved them around a few times as they look 'odd' in my garden (and still do) but I was determined to have them after all that trouble.  As I said this is their first year in bloom.  If you look at the photo carefully you will see there are four flowers per stem and the whole thing is more than three feet tall, so they are remarkable specimens.

This is another odd ball.  A primula, yes, but strange colour and even stranger development.  As it starts to put up the flower stem it is covered in a silver grey powder so they look for all the world as though they have some mold/fungal problem.  They then come to fruition and produce the prettiest of flowers above pale green, spotless leaves. It is the Asiatic primrose -Primula capitata.

This is a bit of my wild and woolly garden.  My other half loves little tidy plants dotted about surrounded by clean black soil and I just love this!  Good job I am the gardener.....

As I said if you want to see more take a look in the web album now and then.

My garden 2013

My garden is six years old this July.  Happy Birthday to it etc.

Every year in July I take 8 photos - one from each corner and one half way between each corner - roughly eight points of the compass so I can see the results of the 'work' I do.

I thought I might share a couple with you....



This is looking North east and is the corner in 2007 and 2013.  In 2007 we had a small seating area in the corner which we quickly decided was a waste as we never ventured that far! The patio had just been put in and I was never going to have pots all over the place that needed constant watering.  So to 2013... the bench in the corner has moved on to the patio along with the pots (!)  and we now have a very useful summerhouse down there.

This is the opposing corner - looking South West.  In 2007 we had the caravan at the side of the house and a BBQ area.  I think we used the BBQ twice (!) and the caravan has moved on to new owners.  I love looking at the twigs aka box hedge.  I planted this because our garden travels every which way and the patio is nice and level.  I reckoned the box would hide the concrete up-stand and from the patio it would soften the edges.  Come 2013 and indeed it does just that.

Bakers dozen

If you don't count the half a strawberry each that we have already eaten - these are our first pickings they are not a bad size, so six (and a half!!) each will add something to some ice cream.

I also dug up three days worth of potatoes from the row of Charlottes - everyone a good size and absolutely without blemish.  So pleased.

I intended not to be negative here in the blog about the lotty as I would like others to join in but I do need to say my two apples trees (in pots) have been stolen otherwise folk who follow this would wonder what happened to them.  There are some miserable folk about.  My water butt got stolen pretty soon after we put it in place - as I said - I left that 'news' out of here.  So, the simple answer is do not have anything at the lotty that someone can pick up and walk away with.

I refuse to let it blight it for me - keep in keeping on.......... a bit sad though.

Jobs for July

Reminder (as always) this is no where near a definitive list of garden stuff for July - you can get a zillion of those via Google.  This is a list of what I do in July here 'up North'.

• Every month during the summer I chuck Phostrogen (7:7:7) at the borders at the beginning of the month and feed hanging baskets every Sunday
• Feed tomatoes every two weeks until they fruit
• Spot weed the lawn (did a full weed and feed in June)
• Feed rhubarb (if it was fully grown and I was using it I would also need to think about stopping picking end of the month)
• Divide iris
• Have a think about what other veggies I can still sow

In that vein here's what I think I will be sowing this month with crossed fingers.

• Carrot - early Nantes
• Beetroot - Wodan F1 if I can get the seed - have never grown a successful beetroot yet but am hoping the lotty will make the difference.  Mine are not only picked at golf-ball size but have the same density.
• Considering growing French beans - don't like their squeakiness when you eat them - yes, I know, not a well woman!
•  Keep succession sowing salad leaves and radishes
• How about perpetual spinach?