June Garden

It’s sunny! The sun has come back! I was worried there for a minute. How is your garden? Did it benefit from all the rain?! Everything looks lovely and lush in my little cottage style garden.

I have finally planted out some annuals and while I wait for those to impress me, I’ve got some perennials in flower and one or two surprise self seeders. Although it’s all gone a bit straggly over the years, I still love my garden space.

These alliums have all collapsed now. They looked very proud of themselves when they were at their peak.

The honeysuckle has never looked so good. It was all lopped back two or three years ago and it has done it the world of good. The colours are looking super tropical!

I’ve got a thing about blue flowers. I love them. The more intense the blue, the better. Speedwell en masse is terrific but just look at that anagallis! It’s wonderful. That’s one I planted last year. I did a test between shop bought seeds and collected seeds. Um, I have no idea which this is. Sorry. It wasn’t a very good test. It could even be the survivor of two summers ago when my mum brought me over three plugs from Sarah Raven. It goes nicely with the double petalled feverfew (there was a rogue one that cropped up years ago, I made sure to collect the seeds and now there’s tonnes of the stuff).

During the first week of June, my rambling rose was phenomenal. It was huge! Of course, it was battered by the rain. It is no longer as happy as this.

The rain also quashed the lupins and enticed slugs and snails towards my hostas. The peony has been dead headed. I might chop back the whole lot as it’s drowning a geranium. I’ve done some weeding, which has made it look less tatty than this.

And then there’s the veg. So much purple stuff this year! I’ve been watching the dwarf french bean flowers come out. We have baby beans! But it is the purpleness of the flowers that puts a smile on my face. So much prettier than runner red or the white of the usual frenchies. I’ve got purple mangetout too! The packet says shiraz, which makes me want to drink wine. The flowers are beautiful although they’re more Audrey 2 than sweet pea. There’s no smell either but I hope that their fragrant sisters will  soon get a move on a do some growing. I cheated and bought a pot of ten sweet pea babies. I’ve always grown them from seed in the past but completely forgot this year.

It’s all kicking off now so I dare say I’ll be back quite soon with yet more pictures of plants. See you soon. X

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More June Garden

Allium and ferns

I only have garden pictures today as I’m not up to date on anything else. Even these aren’t really making me dance a jig.

rain swamped rose

We’ve had so much rain. It pummeled the roses so that their fallen petals left a hazardous slippery goo on the steps. And sadly, because I thought it was done, I chopped all these twisty branches off two days ago. It is far more naked than this right now.

Hosta in the garden.

I’m assuming it’s slugs that have treated themselves to my hosta. It was certainly they (and the snails) who decimated my first round of lettuces.

aphids on my lupin

Aphids are having a go at the lupins, which never stood a chance this year. I sprayed them with bug spray a few weeks ago; the leaves were curling and the stems and buds were smothered in thousands of mischievous sap sucking  bugs.

rocket

The rocket has gone to seed. I don’t mind too much as we got a fair few dinners from it. Plus, the flowers can be eaten too. Bonus.

messy veg patch

Last year’s parsely is going to seed, as expected. I am still gathering what parsley I can from it before it goes too ‘not right’. There is also new stuff in there somewhere too. I have far more nasturtiums than is necessary but everytime I rip it out, the guilt weighs down on me.

butterfly on erysimum

Even the butterflies look tatty. Eeh, I’m not painting a very jolly picture.

delphiniums by the shed.

Things that made me happy were the delphiniums. I hadn’t realised they were here already, so to see them was lovely. Mind you, something/somebody has already flattened two of them so now I’m sad again. They are also really hard to photogrpah nicely.

double petal fever few.

Another pleasant surprise is the feverfew. Strictly speaking it’s an univited guest. It cropped up surrepticiously one summer and was not seen again for another three years.

Double petal feverfew.

Last year it decided to come back and I was delighted. I made sure to save some seed too. What I like about it is that, it is a double petalled variety. The one I bought at the garden centre was not and also had very yellowy leaves.  I prefer the one that chose me.

pots of flowers.

The pots are looking alright. As usual I didn’t have much of a planting plan. Before the season begins I promise myself that I will plan what to buy and plan where it’ll go. Pah, it never happens. I end up just buying what I fancy. And to be honest, that method hasn’t not worked for me. Provided only a handful of colours are chosen, I think anything can look good. I go for blues, purples, pinks and white. I avoid yellow, orange and red. I don’t like them…until the day I do and then I’ll buy all those instead.

petunias in pots

bellis and lobelia

Flower pots.

I go for a mixture of garden centre and supermarket. I get the fancier ones from the garden centre and bulk them up with cheapy supermarket staples. And, if I’m feeling enthusiastic, I’ll gather seed from those that give it up and I can grow my own plants for the following year. It worked for the anagallis (not yet flowered though). I also saved the seed from last year’s hosta but nothing came of those. I didn’t look into it, just bunged them in a pot to see what would happen. The answer turned out to be nowt but you don’t know unless you try. Stock is a good one to save as is aquilegia. I forgot to save either of these last year.

If you want to get a shock like me, look at this blog post from last year (scroll past all the irrevelant pictures). How neat and tidy is that?! What a difference a year makes! I’ve let myself go, obviously. I had no clue. The shame!