PotsandPlots

It’s been an out-of-sorts gardening week. The weather forecasts have been terrible, but then the actual weather hasn’t been too bad. This made it hard to settle to any tasks.

We have had quite a bit of rain, which, after so much hot and dry, can only be a good thing. Nevertheless, I find myself vaguely dissatisfied with my garden offering.

I think the PotsandPlots garden favours the early months, and much of what I like is starting to go over. The new sections of the garden haven’t changed much, and I can’t fiddle because I need to see what happens with them.

SixOnSaturday is curated by Jim at Garden Ruminations, and you can find the participation guidelines here.

1. Let’s start with the front garden, which is now in full flow. The Rose Campion seeded itself there a few years ago and is gradually overwhelming the heleniums that are behind it.

Those heleniums are being well and truly squeezed by the hydrangeas behind them, which, despite the dry, hot weather last month, are doing better than ever – probably because I was watering them three times a day.

The hydrangeas were collected from the back garden, years ago, and despite my mum telling me that hydrangeas under the front window were for old people, I rather like them.

2. At the very front of the front garden, I have an enormous weigelia bush. This has just had its annual trim, as I attempt to thin it out, particularly because it very quickly encroaches on the neighbour’s drive.

I’m in a quandary about what to do with it. As you can see, it has lots of branches at the base, and I’m wondering whether I should give it a hard prune to in the hope that it will gain better shape. I’ll have to take the hit of no flowers for a year, but it might be worth it.

Alternatively, I could (try to) remove it altogether.

What the prune has done is free up some space which is currently full of wildish flowers – more rose campion, some blue alkanet and a jasmine that has somehow found its way into the garden. Now I’m looking at the space and thinking, “Maybe I could dig all that out and plant something interesting…”

Any gardener would do the same!

3. As promised last week, here is my geranium Ann Folkard. My dad suggested I plant this because it would ramble through everything. He was right, and I love it.

4. In the last twelve months, I cut back a big continus (just in shot) and an even bigger forsythia, which has revealed the wall of my garden office. Last weekend seems like an awfully long time ago, but I found time to repaint the wall and put up and paint this new piece of trellis.

I’ve added Clematis ‘Warszawska Nike,’ chosen by my wife, to try to soften the edge. Obviously, it hasn’t started growing, but I’m looking forward to growth and flowers in future years.

5. I’ve moved a lot of my indoor plants outside for the summer, not least this oxalis, which I bought after seeing them growing in the glasshouses at the Barbican in London. It’s been so wet the last couple of weeks I’ve had to be careful with the plants I’ve put outside, but they all seem to be enjoying the fresh air.

6. One of my summer pots. The violas are taking it over. There are white petunias and some pale yellow thunbergia in there too, but they’re not getting a look in right now!

Finally, a little bonus. Regular readers may remember that I posted how my heavenly bamboo had shed all (most of) its leaves after the hot spell we had. It looks as though it’s going to bounce back! New leaves have appeared, and at this rate, it will look healthy again in no time.

That’s it for this week. See you next time, and thanks for looking at my #SixonSaturday