As this means that November has almost ended, I am determined to get at least one blog written before December is upon us. Before getting all horticultural, I have a short story I would love to share with you….

My story begins some time after the Second World War, when my late mother in law had enjoyed her experience in the land army so much, that after training at agricultural college and working on various farms, she eventually secured the tenancy of a small farm just north of Otley in Yorkshire. I suppose that by today’s standards, this 20 acres of grass with little more than a barn in the yard, is officially a small holding. 

Back then, it was one of several farms which were run by tenant farmers in the vicinity. I don’t imagine the tenants were ever wealthy, but they made a living and raised their families. She married, had five children and continued to farm there long after she had parted company with her husband and all of the children had grown up and left home.

The five children all went their different ways and did different things in life, they met partners and had lives of their own. Then every now and then, they went back home. Haymaking was quite an event. For a woman who had herself, chosen a male dominated occupation, my mother in law had a surprising tendancy to rush about, (and expect her daughters and her sons partners to do likewise,) providing cups of tea and food for ‘the men!’ This was probably perfectly reasonable considering the fact that it was often the men that did the majority of the chucking bales on the trailer and then from the trailer into the loft. However, it led to much activity and some chuntering on occasions!

Over the years, babies were born and my mother in law saw grandchildren numbers swell to a final total of 23! Grandma Joan/Farmer Grandma watched a new generation of children playing on the tyre swing, picking blackberries, finding mushrooms and camping out. 

Joan once told me that when she first arrived at Prospect Farm, she wasn’t particularly fond of it. The deep attachment she eventually formed with the place must have been a gradual proccess. I like to think that having lived and worked there for over fifty years, every tree and every stone wall was comfortingly familiar. That she came to love her little piece of Heaven, is not in doubt. Following a request to the Landlord many years ago, she is now buried in her favourite spot in one of the fields with a wonderful view down the valley and across to the chevin beyond.

The landlords agent said the farm was not for sale and we couldn’t take over the tenancy. This was not a great surprise, as all of the other old tenancies had gone one by one as the original tenants went. The stone houses and barns are a property developers dream and the small land parcels were added to larger farms.

They agreed to let us stay for 18 months. The cattle were still in the fields and our son and his partner moved in to the house. It allowed time to adjust for all of the family. At some point during this period, it dawned on me just how different things were going to be when we couldn’t visit any more.

Prospect Farm had worked it’s magic.

Literally one week before the tenancy was due to end, we were told that if we could come up with the asking price, we could buy it. We couldn’t possibly afford it…but how could we let it go?  After a tense few months, some sleepless nights, a nerve wracking herd reduction sale and the most amazing, (financial) support from family and friends, we have bought a property in need of underpinning, total renovation and all sorts to do outside.

Once we move in, some time in the New Year, although I have agreed to continue with some of my existing work, I will be looking for gardening/design work in the area! Watch out for my new website!!

Meanwhile, I have continued to work! We have been extremely fortunate and have not had the sheer volume of rain here that has caused flooding in places such as Cumbria. It has been unusually mild and I think we have only just had our first couple of light frosts. Nasturtiums and petunias look rather strange flowering in November.

At Stillingfleet Lodge, (check out the new website… which I can’t seem to open in a new window, so click the back arrow to return to the blog) http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk/  work is underway to ready the gardens for next season. The pond was almost completely obscured by Water soldiers Stratiotes aloides, a floating aquatic plant that is a British native, despite it’s almost tropical appearance. The plants sink down to the bottom of the pond in the winter so we wanted to catch them before this happened! 

Ofcourse, even when autumn temperatures do drop, there are flowers that will perform. Nerine bowdenii in Christines garden always looks good with the purple berries of  Callicarpa bodinieri   growing against the fence behind. http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener

…Other times it is just wet!

I was rained off today and have spent the day trying to catch up with paperwork. When I sit down to the farm accounts, I occasionally find my mind absently wandering to thoughts of any garden design work I might be working on. Sketches doodled on the back of envelopes and stacks of plant catalogues seem to accumulate amongst the Calf passports and invoices at the best of times! 

Today has been a string of constant interruptions. Bulb catalogues left temptingly nearby were responsible for wasting quite a while and then my mind strayed off to thoughts of one of my own garden projects, a mini earth sheltered house (currently unfinished)…and I now have an evening ahead of farm paperwork so please excuse me!!

Until my next blog, please have a look at the photos I took during one of my moments of wandering earlier today…http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener

As today is officially the first day of Autumn, this seems to be a good opportunity to reflect on the last few weeks of Summer before finally embracing John Keats’ Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

For many years now, as a farmer’s wife and mum, September has been a breathing space between those last precious but hectic days of the school holidays and the inevitable new term routine which seems to gradually build until reaching frenzy pitch by mid December. The long summer holiday never drags on a farm, family outings are squeezed in as often as possible between leading hay and straw along with all of the usual jobs on a livestock farm. In the summer garden, (as I have mentioned before,) keeping on top of the weeds, lawn and harvesting of fruit and vegetables is a challenge in itself.

Then a brief September lull, before the days seem too short to get everything done, even without the added pressure of Christmas preparations! On a good day in September, there seems to be something special about the light quality. The warmth from the sun on a hot day is now something to appreciate rather than to endure! The speed of growth in the garden is slowing down again and flowers, fruit and hips tend to remain for longer than a blink of an eye! 

This September has been a personal milestone for me as our youngest daughter has just started University. Although John and I have now driven to four separate universities, with four different children squashed in the back of various vehicles, packed with assorted boxes and bags, it is not something that ever becomes routine or boring! Of Course Annie is already making new friends and settling into her new routine, whilst I am also gradually adjusting to mine!

Apart from only a couple of days of rain, (one of which I spent clipping topiary until I was completely covered in tiny green spots of Box leaves!) we seem to have had a good share of sunshine this September, with the promise of High pressure building over the next few days too. Butterflies and bees have been making the most of the late summer sunshine and I haven’t had the heart to cut back some of the later flowering lavender yet. 

Please click on the link to see the photos to illustrate this blog  http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener 

Whilst working at Stillingfleet Lodge   http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk   recently on a day when no other staff were there, rather than eat in an empty staff hut I took my lunch down to the pond and wild flower meadow. Though the grass pathways through the meadow are kept short, the long grass and wild flower areas are only cut once a year in late summer, allowing flowers and grasses to seed and die down. Even though this annual operation had only recently been carried out in some areas, the newly cut grass was studded with several species of Colchicum. The first tinges of autumn colour were just showing on shrubs such as Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’, Stewartia and Parrotia persica and many of the species roses were still giving a fine display of hips. Whilst sitting by the pond, I watched dragonflies and butterflies and returned to work in the stock beds feeling fully recharged!

There is still so much flowering in September, it’s difficult to pick favourites. Roses are still producing flowers and if you are looking for a good red rose with a good scent, William Shakespeare is hard to beat! The rose shown on the flickr link is taken at Stillingfleet where a row of William Shakespeare are trained along a metal framework at the far end of the Avenue. Anybody who walks along the Avenue and sits on the bench at the bottom to look back towards the house and the long borders, cannot fail to notice the wonderful scent. I have included a picture of the pot stand which greets visitors as they enter the Courtyard, bedding in pots always looks so cheerful at this time of year!

Whilst on this subject, I visited my daughter Claire in Ludlow a couple of weekends ago, where we were most impressed by the number of containers and hanging baskets sited around the town. Although some were supplied by the local council, a large number were planted and looked after by local residents. I would just like to say a big thank you to people like David Knapp and others like him, who take the time and effort to create such pretty container gardens that we can all enjoy. Even the smallest of gardens, or houses with no gardens at all, can provide all year round colour with imagination and a little care and attention!

A couple of years ago, my mum treated me to a weekend course on making willow garden structures. We arrived at Higham Hall, Bassenthwaite Lake near Cockermouth in the Lake District with no previous knowledge of the place and no idea what to expect. Higham Hall turned out to be a 19C Gothic mansion within pleasant grounds and with views of Skiddaw and the Northern Fells. The staff are friendly and helpful and the accommodation and food are good. The college runs a variety of courses which leads to an interesting and varied dynamic mix of people to chat with over an evening meal or in the bar.

The tutor for the willow garden structures course was Phil Bradley, a local basket maker and willow grower, who also travels further afield for teaching and commission work. My expectation during my original willow weaving experience, was to produce something attractive and useful for in my own garden, with the added satisfaction of having made it myself.  

That first insight into willow weaving was fascinating! Phil now grows over 40 varieties of willow, giving him a choice of colours, lengths and subtle differences of texture and pliability, which I had previously never even considered. He explained that he originally purchased his bolts of willow from commercial growers in Somerset and had the choice of one variety which was variable in quality. This reliance on a supplier at the other end of the country, together with concerns over the chemicals used during production, eventually led him to grow his own.

There seems to be something comfortingly straightforward about producing a beautiful, serviceable item such as a basket from a natural, renewable plant material you have grown, harvested and carried home on your back - all with only a few basic tools!  Ofcourse, almost 20 years experience and a natural flair for your craft must help!! Anyway, we all learnt some basic weaves and produced a couple of amazingly strong and attractive plant supports and a small sample hurdle each. I have since made a support at home, but would have struggled to remember how to do it without my notes to refer to! I think willow weaving is one of those skills that is best learnt by, ‘doing’ alongside a good teacher!

During my recent visit to Higham Hall, I was accompanied by my youngest daughter Annie, also keen to learn the secrets of willow animal making!

To check out the photos, please see:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener 

There were 12 of us in the group and our first task was to decide what animal to make. Patricia finally had second thoughts about her grizzly bear and opted for a heron to stand in her garden near the river. Perhaps more in keeping with a Keswick garden than a grizzly?! Chris, (a willow animal regular!) made a giraffe and Kathryn, despite the sheer volume of her chosen subject, stuck to her guns and produced a most wonderful elephant!  Along with the above, we produced deers, dogs, butterflies, a hen and a goose! Initially we managed to kink our rods, (that’s not a good thing!) and maybe our heads weren’t quite as we had intended, but with the guidance of a good teacher and fuelled by Higham Hall food….we all managed to produce animals that were recognisable!!  

For more information about Higham Hall and details of courses , please see the following link. As I can’t get this link to open in a new window, you will have to click your back arrow to return to the blog!  http://www.highamhall.com

Phil Bradley, basket maker and willow grower can be contacted by email: philbradley248@btinternet.com 

Anybody who feels the need to delve deeper into the wonderful world of willow, may be interested to know that there is a National Collection of Willow at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire. The National collection was originally set up at Long Ashton Research Station in 1920, to act as a repository for disappearing basket willows and was transferred to Rothamsted in 2002. Apparently it is now the most comprehensive willow collection in the UK. It looks as though much of the current research being done there is willow breeding for biomass fuel.

So along with providing material for the traditional art of basket making, maybe willow also holds the key to  providing an energy solution for the future?!

Please click on the link below as usual, to see the photos to illustrate this blog:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener 

Before I start, I would like to thank everybody who sent me recent e-mails about the blog. I appreciate the comments and will certainly continue writing for as long as I can think of anything to say….which could be quite a while, considering we are talking about gardens! A few people have asked me how they post comments on this site. Simply go to the bottom of the page and write your comment in the box. If the comment box is not visible, click on the title of the blog you wish to comment on and the page should reload with the comment box.

The genus Salix, includes a wide variety of deciduous plants which range in size from tiny ground hugging shrubs to large trees. As there are somewhere in the region of 250 true species along with many naturally occuring hybrids, plus quite a few varieties, I am not going to write about them all!

As a gardener, my primary interest in willow is in it’s ornamental value; both as a garden plant and also when used as a material for making garden structures.

Of course willow has long been valued for the toughness and suppleness of it’s shoots which make it ideally suited for wicker work and basket making. Whereas I think of S. daphnoides as having attractive purple young shoots and stems which are white bloomed in the winter, to a basket maker it is one of the osier willows and produces, ‘violets.’  Other osier willows include  S. purpurea, the purple osier, S. viminalis, the common osier and S. amygdalina which has varieties known in the trade by wonderful names such as Black Italian, Black Maul, French, Glibskins, Jelstiver, Mottled Spaniards and Pomeranians!  Salix coerulea is the willow used in cricket bats and white willow bark, containing Salicin, has been used as pain relief since the days of Hippocrates. Today, aspirin is made from acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), a synthetic variation of Salicin…..But back to gardening!

Most people recognise a weeping willow. S. x sepulcralis ‘ Chrysocoma’  syn. S. alba ‘Tristis’ (Please don’t get me started on the subject of botanical name changes. I had enough of a job learning 20 plants a week at college without somebody periodically changing them! The Golden weeping willow is a beautiful tree, sadly planted all too often in gardens which are far too small to accommodate this graceful giant. It is a fast growing and wide spreading tree reaching 50 feet or more, best viewed on a river bank or in rolling park land - not squashed between the garage and next door’s fence!

The Kilmarnock willow S. caprea ‘ Kilmarnock’ syn. S. caprea ‘Pendula’ seems to be a popular small garden weeping willow alternative. This little tree is grafted on to a 5 - 6 feet stem and has grey catkins with yellow anthers before the leaves appear. One small plea here…if you choose a grafted weeping standard, please let it weep! If you feel the need to chop off the bottom 2 feet for ease of mowing or because it looks tidier, consider an alternative such as a standard rose.

For pure silvery elegance, the Coyote willow S. exigua makes a lovely backdrop or screening shrub even on sandy soils. It has grey leaves covered in silky silver hairs, but this is a thicket forming, suckering shrub which reaches 12 feet and needs space.

I love S. lanata, the wooly willow, which is a compact shrub with dark green leaves covered in silvery grey wool. Smaller still is S. reticulata. This dwarf prostrate shrub forms a mat of attractive rounded green and deeply veined leaves which have white hairs beneath. It only grows a few inches high and has pretty yellow catkins with pink tips in the Spring. Willow such as S. alba vitellina ‘Britzensis’ is grown for it’s bright orange and red winter shoots.

The sight of Pussy willow S. caprea  growing in hedgerows, scrub and along river banks in early Spring, is always a welcome sight and it is probably through collecting stems of pussy willow catkins for in a jam jar on the school Nature table, that I first observed how easily willow roots. Many willows have attractive catkins, I put some photos of S. gracilistyla and S. gracilistyla ’ Melanostachys’ up to illustrate an earlier blog, ‘What’s good about gardening in February?’  These photos can be viewed by clicking on the link at the top of the blog. 

Willow as a material to make garden structures can be used either dried or green. Green, or living willow rods, cut in late February or March and pushed into the soil will root and produce new fresh growth very quickly. Choose unbranched rods from the previous season which are approximately the width of a finger at the base and space them 6 to 10 inches apart. By bending some of the rods one way and others in the opposite direction, it is not difficult to form a simple weave. Structures such as screens, arches, tunnels and arbours can all be made in this way. The only help the willow needs to become established is to avoid competition from weeds and grass and a drink during periods of drought in the first year.

Actually, establishing a living willow structure is the easy part, but to keep the structure in check needs ongoing maintenance. Weaving in new shoots that you decide you want to keep and cutting off those you don’t, is what makes the difference between a willow screen and an unwanted tree!  For anybody who is prepared to spend a little time on it, a living willow structure can be a very rewarding project!

The only problem from my side is that I have to keep all the projects alive and healthy while they are being filmed. Not as easy as it sounds! We’ve had to invest in stands to keep the hanging baskets looking good and I have found myself watching weather forecasts with trepidation in case high winds mean everything has to move inside the already-full greenhouse. The upside is that our garden has looked beautiful all summer and the scent when I walk outside is wonderful!

Steve and I have been to seed company open days through the summer and visited various flower shows around the country. It seems that, in general, it was a good spring and summer for the plant sellers at the shows, tailing off in July. Some are worried that the economic downturn means that sales will be low next year and that it may not be worth their while doing the Shows circuit. It’s quite costly travelling to each of the main shows and unless the sales cover the costs, many can’t afford it. Losing this access to the grower (the person most qualified to help with a specific plant) would be such a shame - not to mention the loss of part of our gardening heritage.

The seed and young plant companies are turning their attention to next spring and trying to anticipate the sales trends. This year was very strong on vegetables for the home grower and they see this as continuing. Seed sales were around 70:30 in favour of vegetables over flowersthis year. It’s only 3 or 4 years since the balance tipped that way, so the change has been rapid.

The breeders are looking at smaller veg that will crop well in containers. The idea is to make it attractive for the novice gardener to have a few plants in containers that will provide a decent crop without too much effort on their part. I stress that this is “proper” breeding, too, not GM. Many plants are being sourced from the old Soviet Union countries that were closed to the West for so long and some exciting new varieties are being brought along for future years. Plants are trialled for as long as 10 years before the breeders are happy to release them onto the market, because the performance has got to be reliable. 

Grafted vegetables like tomatoes have been around for a long time, but the range is now being expanded to cover aubergines, peppers, cucumbers and melons. Why? Well, grafted plants (where the desired fruiting variety is grafted onto a really strong rootstock) offer disease resistance, vigour and increased fruiting. They are initially more expensive, but you need less plants to get the same crop and you should be able to keep them cropping for longer. One company is developing plants with 2 tomato varieties on a single rootstock. Definitely something to look out for if you’re tight for space.

Finally, Steve and I were asked along to be judges at the annual Retail Awards recently. No, I can’t give you a sneak preview of the winners, because they will be announced in November and we’ll find out when they do. Various garden retailers enter the many different categories and it’s fascinating to see what initiatives are being devised to attract customers. This is the 3rd consecutive year we’ve been asked and it was actually sad to see how the entries are tailing off. If times are hard, it’s important to make more effort, not less, and good performance needs to be rewarded.

So, it seems that everyone is after the green pound in your pocket. My advice? It’s all common sense:

• don’t go for trendy plants that may not live long
• be selective, do a bit of research before you choose and buy quality plants whenever you can
• don’t buy more than you need unless you can do swaps with family, friends or neighbours - and if you can do this, buy offers that give good discounts for quantity
• if you want a particular plant, go to a specialist who will be able to help you select the right one
• support your local growers (too many plants are brought hundreds of miles from abroad when local growers are struggling).

I hope your plants are looking terrific and I’ll see you again soon!

When looking at photos taken over the course of a few months, it is always amazing to be reminded of just how much a garden changes throughout the year! It also served as a reminder that I originally agreed to write the blog for a trial period of six months, to see if anybody out there would read it. As this six months is drawing to a close after a couple more posts, I would be very grateful for any feedback at all. Even a quick, ‘hello’ as I have no other means of knowing if the blog is of interest to anybody other than my mother, who seems to be the main comment contributer!  

Much as I appreciate her support, it does seem slightly ridiculous answering questions on here which she could ask me on the phone…

As August passes it’s halfway point and the days seem to shorten quite dramatically, it is difficult not to feel a slight sense of melancholy now and then. Somehow the summer which felt like forever, can now be measured in remaining weeks. The dew on the lawn, swirls of leaves from the odd trees that seem to let go in the slightest breeze and craneflies fluttering about in their rather half hearted pathetic fashion at the kitchen window. All of these things add to the feeling of something finishing.

I was gardening at home the other evening, until everything around me was in black and grey. Identifying and snipping at the correct stems was becoming difficult - as close to the thrill of gambling as I ever get! I finally gave up when the midges became intolerable, to find it was still not long after 9pm. I’ve stopped taking the hayfever tablets and all around us, the sound of combines and the sight of balers popping out round bales heralds harvest time.

Ofcourse these familiar pangs of summer passing it’s peak don’t usually bother me for long, I actually enjoy late summer and Autumn, once I have resigned myself to their arrival!

The garden can look a little tired in August, perennials and shrubs which have finished flowering and those with foliage looking slightly tatty can soon give a neglected feel to the place. It is still worth cutting back perennials that don’t have any value as winter interest in the form of interesting seedheads or stems. If you haven’t done so already, cut back Astrantias, Alchemilla mollis,  and Geraniums that have finished flowering now and they should still have time to form a fresh crown of foliage before too long. Trim Lavandula sp  once they have finished flowering, cutting off the flower stems and into the foliage produced this season.

To end on a positive note about mid August, here are a few of the good bits!!

Working in the herb garden at Moat House last week was a pleasure, it was alive with butterflies and bees and the scent produced from clipping the chamomile took me back to pre college days working at Temple Newsham!

Many annuals are at their best by now, I love Nicotiana Tinkerbell F1 with it’s dusky pink flowers which are lime green on the back and have blue pollen. Nigella damascena has wonderful flowers, (I prefer the blue to white or pink) pretty feathery foliage and good seedheads. Simply leave them where they are and you should have plants year after year, or save and sow if you are on a heavy clay. The light quality now in the morning and evening sunshine gives some lovely effects of backlit foliage. Shrubs such as Cotinus cogygria ‘Royal Purple’ when viewed with the sun behind are spectacular. In the vegetable garden, beans are cropping well, especially dwarf french beans.

At Stillingfleet Lodge http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk  I love the bold hot splashes of colours in the long borders just now and flowering shrubs such as a Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ which spends much of the year nestling discreetly against the house, now boasts big showy waxy white blooms. In the meadow, the species roses are producing the most wonderful array of hips.

In Yvonne’ cut flower garden, the sweet peas are now being picked by the armful and the dahlias are at their peak. At Christine’s, I think the balance of textures and colours in the bed of Crocosmias, Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’, Echinacea  and Hemerocallis      is just about right this year! We have pinched out the growing tips of the Lysimachia and pulled out quite a lot to give a delicate chocolatey backdrop for the reds, oranges and yellows of the flowers.

I could go on…so there are many enjoyable features in the August garden.

It is so good to have her safely home, that as far as I am concerned, just now, she is the best thing ever to come out of South America!

However, she does have tough competition in the form of Verbena bonariensis!!http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener

This hardy perennial has rather sparse, stiff and upright green stems which branch and look very elegant, because the rather narrow green leaves do not hide this ‘airy’ structure. These stems carry lilac purple flowers which start in mid summer and continue right through to early winter. Verbena bonariensis is one of those plants that you can usually squeeze in to a garden that is already full. It looks great when it is planted in a drift through a border amongst other perennials and shrubs. Although it can grow to five or six feet, it is so slender and ’see through’ that it will not dominate and can actually be used very effectively even at the front of a border. By August, when some perennials are looking a bit tired and past their best, V. bonariensis is at the peak of performance.

The flowers are lovely with silver foliage and also look good against green. When it comes to other flowers, they look pretty amongst pink, blue and purple and striking against hot orange, yellow and red! As Autumn arrives, I love the effect of looking through V. bonariensis planted where orange Pyracantha berries such as P. ‘Golden Charmer’ can be seen beyond. 

Verbena bonariensis self seeds readily in most soils, although not on heavy clay. Although a hardy perennial, it sometimes succumbs to a severe winter, although many of the ones I thought had died last winter did shoot up from ground level again after being cut back hard in mid Spring. Some plants will actually seed themselves to death if allowed to do so. A position in full sun and reasonably moist fertile soil is preferred, but if you plant young plants between other shrubs or perennials, they will find their way up to the sun where possible.

If you think your garden is full, but you don’t have any of these lovely plants, how about speaking nicely to a friend or neighbour who has a few spare seedlings? Gardens, in my experience, are never quite full.

In these, ‘growy’ conditions, the garden can quickly become tatty and overgrown without a little attention here and there. I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to keep up with this summer madness in all of the gardens I have worked in. Cutting back perennials which have finished flowering, such as aquilegias and some of the earlier geraniums, can make a big difference just now. Many hardy geraniums will quickly produce a fresh crown of foliage after being cut down to just a couple of inches or so and may provide another flush of flowers later on. Flowered Euphorbia stems can be removed, but remember that the milky sap which drips from the cut stem is irritating to skin, especially in sunlight.

Dead heading lupins, delphineums and roses amongst others will help to prolong flowering and tidy things up. Remember to leave a few seed heads on the plants you want to seed around the garden, young plants can be moved to another spot later in the year if necessary. Myosotes, Aquilegia, Poppies, Foxgloves, Centauria and Alchemillaare all reliable self seeders. Many herbs such as Lemon Balm, Catmint and Chives amongst others, can look decidedly scruffy and ‘tired’ by now. If they are cut right down to just above ground level, new fresh shoots and leaves will appear in no time.

When many plants seem intent on growing at an alarming rate, (wisteria, for instance looks rather wild before it is summer pruned in August,) and you are struggling to keep the weeds in check, there are a few measures you can take to ensure that whilst the garden may look rather exuberant, it retains a measure of calm and control! 

If you don’t have time to remove every weed and finish every job that needs doing…cheat! Concentrate on restoring a sense of order and do the jobs that give maximum effect.

Mowing the lawn and edging up regularly is always time well spent. It can be tempting to neglect jobs such as the edging up when there is so much to do elsewhere, but it really is worth spending time here. Edging the lawn with a pair of Long handled shears and using a Half moon to keep a sharp clean edge along paved areas really does make a big difference to the garden. You can often get away with a few weeds and wayward plants in a border if the chaos is broken by an ordered lawned area!

In a garden without grass, a few strategically placed topiary balls, spirals, cones or low neatly clipped box hedges, provide the same effect of order amongst the chaos! Keep paths open and weed free and concentrate on these areas first when cutting back or tying climbers to structures etc. If there is so much to do that you are unsure where to start, try and attend to key areas such as pathways and seating areas. 

However lovely it is to see a summer garden full of flowers and masses of foliage, it is always easier to appreciate if you provide contrasting calm! The lawn, neatly clipped topiary and weed free paths are all ways of doing this. Another idea is to create a place within the garden that remains well behaved and relatively neat, throughout the year. This could be an area of formal planting or a hard landscape feature which will provide that calming contrast to balance the more flamboyant areas of the garden.

At Stillingfleet Lodge gardens  http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk/ in total contrast to the Cottage garden style of planting found throughout much of the 2 acre site, the modern Rill garden allows visitors to sit and enjoy a space which is simple and unfussy, even in July! Enclosed within a clipped hornbeam hedge, the seasonal changes in this space are minimal and consist as much of light quality and it’s effect upon water, stone and gravel as with the minimalistic planting.

As I work in Christine’s garden during the Spring, much of the action seems to be down at ground level! A delightful selection of flowering bulbs, hellebores and primulas amongst others, can be found amongst the shrubs and trees. Gravel paths wind through the garden and around a pond and eventually lead in to the Trellis garden. This formal, enclosed area, is separated from the rest of the garden by trellis covered with Euonymus fortunei, and really comes into it’s own during the summer months, when this tranquil shady seating area, provides a complete contrast to the rest of the garden, now overflowing with flowering perennials and summer bulbs! It is this contrast that you experience when moving from one to the other, that adds balance and makes both areas work.

However difficult it is keeping on top of the weeds and however tired I feel at the end of an eight hour day…gardening is EASY, compared to the technological advances I have personally had to make to bring you this blog. I am not the most computer literate amongst us, (I’m still struggling with the realisation that they seem to be more than a passing fad!) As none of my four children are currently at home just now, I have battled with my demons over the last few days to set up a Flickr account, in order to continue illustrating this blog. Apparently, the storage space on here is now full and in trying to be clever and create more, I have inadvertently removed all of my earlier photos!! I hope that the following link works and will try to remember how I uploaded the photos, in order to continue in the future!!    

Please do have a look at the photos which illustrate the last blog as well as this one. http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener