I hope like me just as you look around your garden, you’re getting a good feeling of pleasure and satisfaction, it feels for the first time this year that I’ve got it exactly how I was wanting it.
My summer perennials are full of colour, I’m on top of the weeds, the grass or should I say kids sports pitch is neat and lush with the lawn edges and surrounding gardens hedges all cut and looking sharp.
Saying that, I have to concede there are signs now that we are slowly edging towards autumn as the garden is starting to show glimpses of that end of summer tired look.
For me this is a timely reminder that we all need to stop now and again, taking a moment to just enjoy and appreciate our gardens, especially as gardeners we are always looking at least one or two seasons ahead as part of our planning.
And that’s ok as our gardens are always evolving, never the same two years in a row.
For example a Rowan tree I planted a few years ago, Sorbus ‘Jospeh Rock’ which was barely two metres tall with a few thin branches, is now starting to reach it’s full potential and about to put on a glorious display of orange coloured berries but as a consequence, now casts shade to parts of the garden there once was not.
Therefore we then have to react and make the appropriate design changes that our ever growing trees and shrubs will always force us to make to our gardens.
Then there are the changes we want to make to the garden ourselves which is what I am working on just now in my own garden at home.
We started off with pretty much a blank canvass making a basic rectangular border next to where we park our cars, so to fill with late season, colourful, perennial plants.
I actually prefer my borders to have smooth, rounded edges which doesn’t just look better in my eyes but is also more practical when using the lawnmower not having any awkward square corners where the mower just doesn’t get to or if does, scalps and damages the grass.
Having now made the tweaks and expanded the border, I now have the extra space for a few new plants which our garden centres and nurseries at the moment are currently full of.
Over the years I’ve tended to favour springtime over autumn planting, so my new plants which may not be fully bedded in enough to survive a harsh winter, can grow in tandem with the increasing light levels and temperatures that come spring time of year.
This is just my preference as I am working on a heavy and wet soil but there is still plenty warmth to plant just now making it equally as good, and in situations like this even better as with the plants I’ve just bought in flower, it’s so much easier to see how they fit into the border alongside the others.
Although this border is being designed to shine in summertime, it’s too big a space not to give some interest earlier in the year and I’m thinking pockets of springtime bulbs will look good especially alongside the emerging foliage of the perennials.
March and April are still eight months away but it’s early autumn when we want to get bulbs into the ground and for the best selection we want to be buying now!
This is one of those classic “do as I say, don’t do as I do” moments as I’ve had bulb catalogues sitting on my desk since July and I’ve still not even looked at them yet.
Still in the present, there’s a couple of things we can be doing just now to keep our garden plants looking good for as long as possible, and I like these jobs as we have to get right in amongst our plants to carry them out.
Dead-heading is one of those relaxing jobs that can be carried out in the evening sun, with a cup of tea (or maybe something stronger), listening to the sounds of the garden. It’s not only to tidy the plants of spent flowers but serves a purpose of encouraging it to produce more flowers.
I’ll tell you the way it was explained to me by my first head gardener which I couldn’t do better- just like us, all a plant wants to do is grow and to ensure its survival by producing seed.
By removing the spent flowers before they have a chance to set seed will trick the plant to keep on producing more and more flowers.
I guess it’s quite cruel when you think about it like that but we do help them in other ways and it’s good to reward them at this time of year with a weekly liquid feed.
The containers of your hanging baskets, tubs and window boxes will be so full of roots now that they will have absorbed every last nutrient from the compost.
Treating them to a tomato feed diluted to half the usual strength will help give them a much needed boost which particularly focuses on the flowers of plants.
Right, I’m away to look at these bulb catalogues….
