The (un)tidy garden

 

They say that the best way to make you tidy your home is to invite guests.  The same is true of gardens.  I’ve rather rashly agreed to open my garden for a village event this summer, which has focused the mind on getting gardening jobs done; fortunately the weather has continued dry, which has allowed for a lot of outside work (despite an intermittently chilly wind from the east or north-east).

The wisteria

It's a pity that the opening isn’t for a few weeks yet, despite all the work that remains to be done, as the garden scents have been at their best recently: the wisteria on the patio, the rugosa rose in the bottom bed, and the yellow antirrhinum in the greenhouse have all been wafting their perfume around the garden, especially on the warmer days.  I hope that the other roses might still be in flower on the day.

Rosa rugosa

The yellow antirrhinum - a great survivor!

On the subject of the yellow antirrhinum – which is as prolific as ever: the windowbox has been planted for summer, with a mixture of pink felicia, little plants of Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ (cuttings from my main plant), an osteospermum and some Cosmos ‘Xanthos’.  And a plant which I had thought was my tender fuchsia, one of the large-flowered varieties; but as it has developed, I see it’s an antirrhinum, probably self-seeded into the fuchsia’s pot while it was wintering in the greenhouse.  So what happened to the fuchsia?  Dead, probably.  I hope the windowbox colour combination works.

Windowbox - the antirrhinum on the right!

Talking of colour combinations, the pot of Tulips ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Havran’ and ‘Doll’s Minuet’ was a bit of a disappointment; only two of the latter flowered, rather spoiling the point of it all, though the colour contrast worked quite well.  The forget-me-nots were less successful with these shorter tulips than with the taller ones in the larger pot; the short tulips were rather buried among the forget-me-nots.  Something to remember for next year.  The contents of the mixed tulip pots are now past, and have been dug up and sent to the green waste bin.  The dahlias will go into those pots in a few days, once the weather warms up slightly (which it is forecast to do, bringing some welcome rain).

A bit of a disappointment

Some of my ‘waifs and strays’ in little pots have been planted out, mostly in the old herb bed (which still needs some weeding round the edges), although the seedlings grown last year from my bi-coloured aquilegias have found a home around the edges of the (now fully weeded) raspberry bed, at least until I can evaluate their flower colours. 

The veg plot is taking shape too.  There are two patches of broad beans, now in flower; three varieties of pea, ‘Early Onward’, ‘Douce Provence’ and the climber ‘Alderman’, as well as a few mangetout plants grown by a neighbour and donated in return for my surplus tomato plants; leek and carrot seedlings in the ground, and cabbage, broccoli and kale seedlings ready to be planted out once the old plants have been composted and the beds vacated.  The leaf beet has seeded itself everywhere, and there will be plenty to cook this year.  There are lettuces, and also a couple of radicchio plants, survivors of last year’s slug attacks, which have grown from the roots and appeared among the seedlings!  The courgettes are now being hardened off for planting out once the last of the cold nights is past.  There are still some very wild areas round the edges, but things are improving.

Peas, beans and a radicchio among the carrot seedlings!

More peas, mangetout, lettuces and leek seedlings (and weeds behind)

My ‘get out of jail’ card for the garden opening is that I’m going to bill it as a wildlife garden, which it is (at least partly), and I’m hoping that the orchids will be out.  The wildlife probably won’t be much in evidence while the garden is busy, though we see plenty of it at quieter times.  There are at least three blackbird families, goodness knows how many sparrows, and probably three robin pairs.  The great tits have raised a brood in our nestbox, and there are blue tits and wrens in the shrubby areas.  The rat that had been visiting kept a low profile after I threw a (very small) stone at it, and apparently succumbed to the neighbours’ poisoned bait.  But we have three hedgehogs visiting – not always amicably (there have been fights!) – in order to drink from the saucers on the patio every evening, and to fossick around in the undergrowth.