My Garden in Early Summer
It seems like so long ago I sat down to tell you about the plans for my garden this year. Since then, there has been a lot of work and I feel like my ideas are constantly changing as I confront obstacles and fall in love with different plants. So many flowers have already bloomed and faded (RIP tulip; until next year) and the garden currently feels in a funny between stage where the spring blooms are over but the summer flowers are yet to appear in all their glory. These next four months are my favourites in the garden however. It’s the time of year when most of our vegetables grow, when I can nip outside to harvest produce to immediately cook or eat. And it’s the time of year when all my favourite flowers begin to bloom: dahlias, cosmo, geums, geraniums, hollyhocks, larkspur, poppies and zinnias are all either already in flower or are soon to appear. So what have I been doing in my garden these past few months? And what is next on the agenda?
What am I currently working on in my garden?
Always one for biting off more than I can chew, I currently have two large projects on the go in the garden. One, I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the year. We hired a landscape gardener to terrace the half of our back/side garden that had previously been left to ruin on an unaccessible slope covered in a horrid bush that had completely taken over. While our gardener did cut back most of the offending bush and terrace six wonderful flat areas to the left of the steep steps that ascend our back garden, he did not complete the job to the standard we were expecting. We (mainly my partner, Dave) are now going back over the work to achieve the garden we had in mind. The first two beds are complete - held up by sleepers and filled with fledgling vegetables and flowers. With the help of a friend, Dave has built a dry stone wall to support the third bed. This bed (and the three above it) now requires a lot of hard graft to dig up all the roots of the previously offending bush and the remains of a stone wall that is hidden in the dirt. We’ve already done this on beds one and two, and it is exhausted, strenous labour but we are getting there! Our other project is to create a flat area on the slope below our greenhouse, above our garage and beside our patio (the curse of great views is a sloping garden). Dave is then building a cosy seating area on this flat area, complete with a fire pit and a roof so we can use it all year round. Watch this space!
What is currently growing in my garden?
As for what is currently growing in my garden - what isn’t?! I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up …
At the front of our house, on the level of our garage and small shed I have a group of terracotta pots housing geraniums and begonias. These are on the verge of flowering, and I’m living in anticipation of them overspilling with beautiful blooms. We also have a small wooden planter filled with radishes (half of which have already been harvested) and fledgling hollyhocks here. I’m a big hollyhock aficionado and have aspirations of filling my entire garden with them. Hence literally throwing seeds anywhere there is soil.
There are two small beds by the steps that lead up to our house. The first I completely dug out and added good quality compost to at the beginning of the year after many failed attempts to grow anything in the clay-heavy soil. My Mrs J. Bradshaw geum is currently flourishing here, surrounded by an astilbe that is on the verge of flowering, a sidalcea, cat mint, various ground-cover plants and a wonderful deep pink flower that my neighbour gave me a cutting of that I have completely mislaid the name of. The second bed, blooming below our patio, is home to a couple of Japanese anemones (one of which is spreading like crazy and I’m not mad about it), a mai tai geum (give me all the geums - I’m considering adding more!), steadily growing hollyhocks, a peony which is finally in bloom and more ground-cover plants.
Then we have the patio. Home to two planters (one: salad and marigolds, the other: herbs, an Oriental poppy and honeysuckle) and many, many pots. I often get told off by my partner for secretly buying more pots to sneak onto the patio. Can you have too many terracotta pots? Here I am currently growing geraniums, begonias (yes, more), gladioli and ranunculus. I also have two clematis and one jasmine climbing either side of the door, but these haven’t been happy for several years now and I’m toying with the idea of swapping out the pots for two large wooden planters to fulfil my romantic dreams of roses climbing up the front of the house.
Around the corner we have the greenhouse - currently filled with tomato and courgette plants and pots filled with cosmos, pumpkin and squash seeds awaiting germination. In front of the greenhouse sits a wooden planter lined with flowering broad beans, with space for a row of cosmos behind. At the side of the house is another planter, this one filled with runner beans, French beans, marigolds and nasturtium. There are pots of potatoes sat outside the back door.
We then wind up the stone steps to the back garden. On the right, in the old terraces, we have onions, garlic and more broad beans. We will eventually have a pumpkin patch right at the top of the garden. To the left are the new terraces. Bed one: dahlias surrounded by zinnia seeds that I have sown direct and am hoping for the best. A lone fennel and a row of cavalo nero and red Russian kale sit behind them. Bed two: strawberries planted to overhang the sleepers with peas planted behind. There is space in the middle to eventually transplant our courgette plants here. Then there are four more terraces that are yet to be prepped and planted. For the third bed, I am envisioning a mass of perrenial produce and blooms nestled together: fennel, artichokes, geums (always more geums), hollyhocks, ox eye daisies, achillea. Then we’ll have a small seating area, a small bed for more vegetables, and a small place to plant fruit bushes right at the top.
That’s it - for now! I’m only ever so slightly obsessed with buying new plants and growing things wherever I find space. I’ll share again in late summer when my garden is (hopefully) in full glory, and then will share my journey of creating a winter garden that has some life in it. In the meantime, I write more regularly about my garden and gardening journey on my Substack.
