My Little Garden 8th July 2023
This time last week, I was looking forward to a couple of garden photoshoots and a pleasantly relaxing week. Things started to go slightly amiss when I heard about the teacher strike days, and my flexible five days turned into three when I received a ‘can you help’ message from my younger son.
And then it was the weather. I’d planned to go and see the garden of clematis expert Ken Black on Monday, but thunderstorms were forecast, and it had to be postponed until the following day. Fortunately, Tuesday turned out fine, and I spent a fascinating morning chatting with Ken about all things gardening related as well as photographing some really beautiful clematis. What Ken doesn’t know about clematis isn’t worth knowing, and I’d highly recommend checking out his website and YouTube channel.
Wednesday proved to be another washout, but Thursday saw me heading to a flower farm to take photos for a feature in the September issue of Cheshire Life Magazine. It didn’t rain, but the light conditions weren’t the best. Oh well…
My garden has been mostly neglected again this week, apart from some weeding in between showers, but there’s still plenty going on for my Six on Saturday.
I’ll start with the rarely visited front garden, which is full of tough plants that rarely get watered.
1. Geranium
Rozanne needs taming - a job for autumn.
2. Monarda
The variety is ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ and it seems to resist the mildew that afflicts many monarda.
3. Eryngium
A perfect choice for my dry front garden, although Rozanne clearly wants to be in the picture too.
4. Helenium
‘Moorheim Beauty’ came into flower this week.
5. Nigella
Moving on to the comfortable territory of the back garden, this little white nigella caught my eye. A useful little annual that seeds around and can just be treated as a weed if it grows somewhere you don’t want it to.
6. Echinacea
And finally, the first of the echinacea has flowered. Grown from seed by the head gardener of a wonderful garden I went to see last year, it was nurtured through winter and planted out in spring.
So that’s it for another week. It’s a fine start to the day so I’ll be in the garden first thing. Have a great weekend.
