Category Archives: July

July diary 2019

01 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in July, Monthly report, Summer, Vegetables

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1st July

Started the big chopping back. First the catmint by the pond taking care not to fall in!

 

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Good harvest of beans and courgettes from my Monday garden.

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This was my only Rouge vif d’etampes pumpkin!

9th July

 

Having a good sort out in the rose garden. Pulled out the poppies and deadheaded the roses fairly hard.

10th July

 

Dieramas over the pond and magnificent Clematis at the back.

 

This customer really likes Clematis!

16th July

 

When the fence was renewed in the veg patch over winter, it was moved back along this edge, and I gained a new strip of earth. I have enjoyed using the space for annual flowers which wouldn’t stand a chance in the tightly packed borders. The sunflowers and sweet peas have done well and I particularly like this Nigella African Bride

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First bean harvest from the allotment. The yellow ones were seeds from Lidl and the purple possibly Blauhilde. I’ve had the saved seeds in a jar for ages and I can’t remember.

18th July

 

Hot and sticky evening visit to the allotment. Pulled out lots of weeds. The artichokes look great in the late sun.

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It has been so hot this week, in the 30’s everyday. I have spent as much time as I can in the shade and drunks loads of water. I don’t seem to have taken many photos. Just too hot!

27th July

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And today the heatwave ended. It has rained much of the day. This is a self sown sunflower doing well at the allotment and the very late sown onions doing their best.

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Sowed some seeds! I’ve never managed to do this before in July. Here we have Sweet William, saved seeds, various salad leaves, kale and beetroot.

End of the month.

Still cutting back and planting a few cosmos in the gaps. They may survive the rabbits, we’ll see. It’s a funny time of year with the first lot of flowers over and the late summer ones not quite out yet. All this rain and warm weather will encourage it back for a second flush. Had a quick look round to note what is looking good at the end of July.

 

Shasta daisy and Echinops. Verbena bonariensis and Echinacea.

 

Kniphofia and lovely, lovely Agapanthus.

 

By the way I’m on my third pumpkin seed, which hasn’t germinated so that’s it for this year.

Looking Back

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in January, July, November, Spring, Summer, Winter, Year

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New year seems a good time to look back on the last twelve months of gardening. I started at Kenton Hall in January 2018 so this presents itself as a perfect opportunity to look at the changes over a year of extremes. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the snow as I didn’t go that week! The gardens of Kenton Hall provide a stunning location for weddings in the summer months and my job was to keep them up to standard.

January

 

It seems so long ago! I can remember being very cold and the first day that I did here there was a heavy rainstorm. I could see it coming but it was my first day and I didn’t want to give up until it was raining badly enough. I got soaked through to the skin. So what was here was overgrown shrubs and herbaceous perennials. I love a challenge!

February

 

Getting stuck in. Cutting back everything, perennials, grasses and shrubs, including evergreen ones as much as I dare, just so that I can see what is there.

April

 

Things start greening up. The primroses look fabulous along the moat.

May

The first wedding of the season was in May so lots of weeding in preparation, fortunately the owner does the hedging and grass as there is a lot of it. The house provides a stunning backdrop for photos, and the lupins came out, hurrah!

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July

 

 

The beginning of the heatwave. The borders are full and the grass is just about hanging on. Flowering now Stipa gigantia, catmint, Achillea cloth of gold.

 

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August

 

Still looking green, the main flower here was the almost complete bed of Japanese anemones but also shrubby potentilla and the grasses were looking good. I had been coming regularly, but not that frequently, mainly in the week before each wedding.

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October

 

The wedding season had finished now, and I had started to cut back the finished flowers. A lot of plants were just getting to their best, especially the asters (michaelmas daisies) and fuchsia. The leaves were starting to fall off the trees at the back.

 

 

November

 

You can see that whereas mid afternoon in summer is still scorching hot, at the same time in November the shadows are really lengthening and the light is fading.

 

The seedheads did look good in the golden sunlight, they are still there, and there were a few late flowers on the lupins having a second flush. Feeling a bit more in control of the square borders, I got a chance to work in the rose garden and found a Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles in full bloom.

December

Almost full circle and back to a very wintry looking garden and a late flowering rose. January will start with less cutting back and shrub shaping to do than last year so maybe a chance to divide some of the perennials and make the beds more of a mix. At the moment there are big blocks of colour which look effective but then all die back at once.

It goes without saying that I was easily distracted by the beautiful house and trying to get it in the pictures. There are also views over the surrounding countryside.

For wedding venue details and photos I would suggest the website, link in first paragraph, or the Instagram account @kentonhallestate.

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July 2017 review.

03 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Instagram review, July, Monthly report

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I am trying to remember back to the beginning of July, it seems so long ago. I think it was still hot and sunny then, I have almost forgotten what that feels like. Well whatever the weather, July brings high summer with the acid green euphorbias of spring going over and the trees too taking on much heavier shades of green.

The random pinks and reds of the opium poppies filled out the borders with their sometimes frilly, sometimes plain heads.

In the vegetable garden, the first flowers appeared on aubergines, peppers and tomatoes in the greenhouse and beans and courgettes outside.

The echinops took centre stage in the border.

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Echinops blue

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With kniphofia (I can’t believe that I spelt it wrong, I am usually the first to criticise bad spelling!) in a supporting role. Spelling now corrected!

The courgettes started to grow.

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Courgettes @thequeenatb

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Butterflies were out in force, hurrah! And the poppies were all to fleetingly over but leaving lovely structural seedheads.

The roses came back again and the weather got a lot more unsettled.

The echinacea began to flower and it started to feel like late summer. Too soon, too soon!

And there we have it for another month!

Grow your own!

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in July, Pub garden, Uncategorized, Vegetables

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Courgette flowers

After a disappointing previous visit, where I had to compost all the gone over salad leaves that hadn’t been picked, I visited the pub garden this week with some trepidation. As you can see, I needn’t have worried as, much to my delight, it was looking great. It was watered, weeded and the grass around the raised beds had been tidied up. Even better some courgettes had been picked and no doubt used to make something delicious for the customers.

The courgettes are from a packet of seeds front Pennard’s plants called mixed zucchini and the pumpkin is Big Max from the same source. Looking good so far, hoping for a whopper!

There are all different colours of potatoes ready to be dug up and the first few runner beans, again a mixed pack for a variety of flower colours, just appearing.

I also spied a cucumber, baby rainbow beet and am rather taken with the saltwort, very much like samphire. Looking ahead to autumn and winter, I planted out some blue leek seedlings and have high hopes for the butternut squash.

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Cutting back.

24 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in July, Monthly report

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The gardens are looking good with the plants growing luxuriantly and the flowers tumbling together in a frothy mass. And there in lies the problem because, to keep it looking good for more than a few weeks action has to be taken right now which seems quite drastic at first.

It seems such a shame to chop back all the hardy geraniums at the peak of their flowering but I do it every year and I know that they will come back with a second flush. It also gives the other perennials a chance to grow. I will return to do the same to the Alchemilla mollis at a later date.

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This is after the chop. It’s not visible but there is now a lot more space around a clump of agapanthus and room for the dahlias to flower – if not eaten by the rabbits!

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And this is the geranium a week after cutting. I don’t know what this variety is but it grows huge and however much I dig out in the winter, one border is predominantly pink at this time of year.

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Echinops 

So this month has seen a load of cutting back and a fair amount of watering but I’m not complaining about the weather!  Still to come, squeezing in the last few cosmos and deadheading, lots of it!