Julie is a free-lance gardener living near York, England. After training in Horticulture, she has spent the last 25 years combining life as mum of 4 and farmer’s wife with practical gardening, designing and construction. Her work ranges from creating new gardens (or parts of gardens) to routine maintenance and advice.
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A Trip down Memory Lane
August 18, 2009
Anybody reading my previous blogs, will perhaps remember me confessing to inadvertantly deleting the photos from some of the earlier posts! I have managed to find most of the missing pictures and have now ‘re illustrated ‘ a couple of blogs from the March archive. http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieparishruralgardener
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.
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2 Responses to “A Trip down Memory Lane”
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Maybe a phone call could answer questions. However, it would not replace the enjoyment of reading your interesting article which never fails to draw attention to plants we tend to overlook. Neither does a phone call offer the same pleasure as the lovely photographs….so I hope this response is the first of many!
Don’t give up, Julie! You paint such vivid pictures as you write that even a non gardener can enjoy reading your entries and your information is both concise and accurate. There are few enough sources of properly-qualified information (compared to thousands of forum ‘experts’) and I’m sure more folk will speak up in support.