Ch-ch-ch-changes

Cur the lilac back to the bare bones. If I have killed it my defence will be that Monty Don did the same to his in last week’s GW. Planted 6 very short-lived sunflowers and four morning glory seedlings.

Successes

Hawkbit in the lawn in full bloom, justifying all those times I thought about mowing it down but didn’t. Self-seeded Nigella is flowering and looking great. Overlooked at the end of the garden, the solitary lavender in flower and the campion is zinging zingily. The hosta remains miraculously unslugged all month (and, spoiler, into the next).

Both the hydrangeas look good Annabelle more advanced than the smaller Limelight in the west- facing bed. The Black-Eyed Susan is doing well.

The achillea is flowering by June 23. First buds on the day lilies. Brunnera silver spear is recovered from slugs and having been watered is putting on new leaves. The astilbe is flowering. Lots of new growth on the mahonia and the nandina is getting ready to flower.  The loosestrife/alchemilla corner looks lovely as always.

The privet on the patio is flowering. Sitting underneath it is like being gently snowed on.

Hmmms

So far the casualties claimed by slugs and snails this month include five of six sunflower seedlings, three of four morning glory seedlings, the hylomecon bought from the Garden Museum, the acanthus in the back bed of which only two puny flower spikes survived and a handful of skeleton leaves. The garden museum salvia has about a third of one leaf remaining uneaten, although amazingly it seems to be growing back.

One of the hebes is dead, the other is hanging on but not looking healthy – might need to find a replacement for that next year.

Pond is covered with tiny green leaves but it’s hard to clear it without also clearing tadpoles. It will have to wait to be cleared, but the pond generally looks a bit unkempt – the lilies are overgrown and the lack of rain means the water level is right down.

Weather

Hot most of the month cycling between mid 20s and mind-30s. No sign of rain

What with one thing and another this spring has been light on gardening and heavy on furniture moving and working out the best way to do the washing up in the shower. Gardens being gardens though, things seem to have got on without me and progress has been made.

April started off looking like this

Ch ch ch changes

Planted a curry plant in the back border and a purple/red salvia in the east facing bed (where the slugs attack the leaves with gusto but it keeps flowering anyway). Put  a white aster in the shady bed by the fatsia and a couple of shade lovers in the east facing bed where they will be overlooked by next door’s monster shrubs (a brunnera macrophylia silver spear and a hylomecon japonica which promises orange flowers like a poppy.)

Successes

Month got underway with a pond full of toadspawn and sightings of two newts. The pond generally looks great. The grasses have filled out around it and the flag irises and other aquatic plants are busily doing their own thing with no input from me. There are flowers on the bay trees, new growth on the astilbe – which might have heard my mutterings about replacing it and pulled its socks up, The white skimmia and the euphorbias are fantastic. The acer has survived its change of pot and went from this

to this

in the space of the month.

Lots of good ground cover from the dog violets and wild strawberries, creeping Jenny and woodruff. New growth on the lemon verbena , the valerian is starting to flower. Lots of wild garlic. Flower spikes on the acanthus (though, spoiler alert – the plants are overwhelmed by mildew and most of the leaves had to be removed by mid-May)

Hmms

At the start of the month there was no sign of growth on the epimedium (which didn’t sprout back until late May and was immediately slugged into submission). Tried replanting the tuber of the Bishop of Landaff, which was lovingly saved over winter, but no signs of life by end of May, I fear the Bish is no more. No aliums this year or any flowers on the geum (although lots of leaves and what look like flower stems). Both were flowering well this time last year – do I blame the slugs or the weather?

Weather

Has been all over the place. Started warm, ended cold. Dryest spring on record, in contrast to last year’s wettest.

It feels like we’ve missed a summer this year. The weather has been unimpressive, the stats might say it’s been an ordinary year and we’ve just been schooled to expect the extraordinary so we have unrealistic expectations of temperature and rainfall. But this has been a dull year, the garden has behaved perfectly respectably, but the very long wet winter/spring following on from last year’s poor summer has set everything back and it feels like the garden and I have never really have recovered our stride. I am starting to resent the gardens on Gardeners’ World – compared to them mine is a sorry affair, lacking lusciousness and colour, really only bountiful in snails and slugs.

This time last year I was getting things ready to remove the dead tree and get the pond established, so there were lots of changes and planning, 2024 feels staid in comparison, and we’ve lost a lot of what made the garden colourful last year – the achillea and cosmos, destroyed by slugs, the heleniums which didn’t appreciate the wet and cold weather.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Grubbed up the corydalis in the patio – it was looking very mangy and will hopefully grow back. As a result there are now dozens of homeless snails – where will they end up? The nicotiana have flowered well but are over now and have been pulled up.

Successes

Lots of flowers on the pink anemones. The darker pink ones are showing buds but are swamped by the all-conquering euphorbia. The loosestrife flowers are over but the plants are holding their structure at the edge of the patio. The echinops is the best thing in the garden this year, although there are noticeably fewer bees buzzing around them. The valerian in the farthest bed is flowering, the lovely rusty red you see in Devon. The ones in the closer bed look smaller and no flowers yet. New growth still coming on the rose, good growth on fatsia and epimedium. The alchemilla flowers are starting to brown, but the plants still look great, especially when it rains.

The first few flowers are appearing on the Poundland honeysuckle (though nothing on the honey bush) and there’s a flower on the Poundland gladiolus which I’d long given up on. Tomatoes starting to show on the plants which survived the slugs.

Hmms

The fuchsia is having another bad year – so is the astilbe. Plants in the west-facing bed between the echinops and bay are struggling – to be replaced/moved?  

Weather

The stats tell me that there were 10 sunny days out of the 31 in August, the rest were cloudy or rainy, with temperatures rarely hitting anything to write home about.

Ch ch ch changes

Not much has been added or moved this month – I’ve been too busy doing other things. It has been too wet to be inviting. All the toadlets have disappeared from the pond and tiny little toads are occasionally visible in the creeping jenny.

Successes

The dahlia is triumphantly recovered from the slugs and flowering – lots of buds, although the flowers only last a day or so. The crocosmia are a splash of orange in front of the echinops but mainly yellow and white are the predominant colours. The hydrangeas are fantastic, there are acanthus spikes still visible in the back bed and the nandina have sprays of tiny white flowers. The loosestrife and corydalis still doing their thing closer to the patio. The dandelions (which I learn are actually hawkbits) in the lawn are lovely.

The teasel is now at my head height and producing spiky flower heads. The valerian planted at the end of June in the side beds seems to be slug-resistant and is establishing itself. The campion rescued from the lawn last year is flowering under the ceanothus and will hopefully spread this year. The Japanese anemones are putting up lots of buds. There have been flowers on the water lily, the sedge and the grasses have both grown, though I feel there’s more I could do with it (one bonus – it is a spectacular slug-trap)

Hmmms

The honeysuckle is getting long but so far no flowers (although it’s miraculous that it has survived!) There was one flower on the guelder rose, so now there’s one solitary little berry. There is green growth on the honey bush but no flowers at all for the second year.

A few day lilies have flowered, but not profusely and there is no sign of the heleniums which don’t seem to like the east facing bed. The achillea is also flowering but only very few stems have survived the slugs. The hebe is hating the weather and is dying back in stages, although there is still lots of new green growth.

Comparing this July to last year it’s amazing how much that did well last year was just massacred by slugs in the spring. This year there have been no shasta daisies, cosmos, bell flowers or hyssop and last year’s big picture shows much more yellow from the achillea than this. Last year’s fennel was over 6 foot tall and flowering majestically, this year’s is more like 4 foot and although flowers are visible it’s nothing like it was – the slugs got at it early on in and it has never really recovered.

Weather

It feels like it rained 4 days out of 7. Noticeable shortage of insect life, few bees or butterflies.

Ch-ch-changes

Moved the cold frame to give storage space for the bike. Looks much tidier. Pack of nicotiana from Columbia Road planted in front of the fatsia. Re-potted the mint and tarragon into slightly bigger pots. Moved clumps of black grass from the east bed where it was being engulfed by woodfruff, to the opposite side – something the slugs won’t like?

Successes

Yellow everywhere from the dandelions in the lawn and the corydalis and loosestrife. Flowers on the Alchemilla coming up. Hydrangeas and feverfew performing beautifully. Heuchera still going. Growth on the crocosmia much sturdier than last year. 

Tadpoles flourishing in the pond, by late June tiny toadlets visible on the ground, hiding among the creeping jenny. I hope they grow fast and start eating slugs.

Flowers on the epimedium, though that will be better next year when it has properly established. Fatsia putting out lots of new leaves. Fuchsia growing better than last year, but doesn’t have height it had before when it was in the west facing bed.

Dahlia recovering strongly from slug attacks. One of the tomato plants in the ground is doing well, one has already been devoured by slugs. Growth on everything else is rampant and lovely, even the rose which I thought I’d killed off last year.

The back bed is lush – flowers coming on the hydrangea, flowers on the acanthus – although leaves suffering from mildew – maybe from microclimate caused by overhanging lime trees? Good growth on the Nandina

Possibility that the gladiolus bulbs planted last year which did nothing may be coming up by the cordyline – there’s deffo something there! Verbena bonariensis self-seeded from last year’s plants by the echinops doing well. Growth at the base of the cordyline, first spotted this time last year, is strong and healthy.

Lemon verbena moved last month is thriving.

Hmmms

No sign of the seeds scattered to the ground so far, although some of the Nigella planted last year have self-seeded in the west-facing bed.

Slugs have killed the clumps of shasta daisies I tried to split up and replant – despite being surrounded by wool pellets. I will never know if I did it right! Tray of Cosmos seedlings disappeared overnight, so no repeat this year of last years biggest summer success.

Astilbe has small flowers but not thriving as I would expect given all the rain it’s had. It’s now a very old plant – time to replace?

Verbascum in west bed has flowered but only got to about a foot high – not the towering spire I was hoping for.

Weather

Torrential rain interspersed with sunshine but few days have felt tempting to be in the garden.

At the point in the year where this all started, so can start doing some comparisons of progress next month, but here’s the final piece in the 2023/4 cycle

Ch ch ch changes

Trees in front garden pollarded March 20, so will wait to see what happens. Hawthorn and laurel hedges in the front garden are luscious, flowering and green. Dogwoods cut back by the end of the month, leaving a few longer stems as a framework to support the allium leaves. Split up clump of Shasta daisies and planted clumps of varying sizes and likelihood of survival along the west facing bed. Planted a tray of morning glory seeds and tomatoes (hope over experience, although shoots did appear within a week on both).

Successes

Euphorbias marching down the east facing bed, glowing acidly in the shade. Odd to look at them and think that the parent clump started off where the dogwoods are now.  One of the verbascums coming into leaf, Leaves on the fuchsia. First sight of the lily of the valley at the beginning of the month which had put on lots of growth by the end. The wild garlic is back in profusion. Plants put into the west-facing bed as a stop gap when the pond was put in all seem to have established, so that bed now has the pinks, a clump of Japanese anemones and the beginnings of a patch of sweet woodruff. The heucheras planted at the front edge of the main west-facing bed are doing well with flower spikes on the red one. The geum in that bed is putting on growth really fast.

March 20 Equinox: So much fresh green growth in the garden. Growth on both hydrangeas, the honeyberry, honeysuckle and guelder rose. Astilbe seems to have put on 4 inches of growth overnight. Everything looks fabulously full of promise for the spring. Pond-ful of toad spawn. Everything feels supercharged with energy and promise.

Hmmms

Main disappointment has been the daffodils – there have been two flowers, one of which was demolished by slugs, others came up blind (Monty Don has had the same problem apparently, so not feeling too bad about it. He blames the weather in the autumn, so so shall I). Will remove the bulbs in the pot with the birch tree when I top dress it. Forsythia also disappointing, some flowers but not as many as last year.

Weather

It rained and rained and rained, and then it rained some more.