There are times like today when I wish I had never started the End of Month meme but I know quite a few bloggers like doing it so I grit my teeth and carry on. Why the regrets, well this monthly blog post is the most brutally honest post I do since I take photos more of less in the same spots of the garden and I can see all the faults, gaps and mistakes. The rest of the month I can be selective with my photos and show you nice views. So to make me feel better I have started the post with a photo of the patio border which is my favourite part of the garden. I am pleased with the combination of foliage textures and it looks good all year. This is the feel I want to get across the garden in one way or another so quite a lot to do.
I have found this a particularly hard year for gardening. I planted lots of new plants but due to the dry spring and summer and despite my frequent watering they haven’t really established as well as I would like. The border above was called the gravel path border but plans are afoot to dig it all up and create a new pond here since it is one of the few flat bits of the garden. I am still dithering about it but I suspect I will bite the bullet and do it over the autumn.
I am becoming happier with the slope. I have struggled with this area for a couple of years ever since we cleared a vast laurel from it. The trouble is tall plants in this border get bent by the wind and I don’t want to spend all my time staking things. As I said in my last End of Month post this is becoming a Daisy border and now we have had some rain the ground is diggable and I have started moving daisy type plants from around the garden to be included in the border and removing plants that won’t work. I dug up a huge sedum the other day which explains the bare soil. I am pleased with the Calamagrostis Overdam along the back of the border which I planted a year ago. They are filling out and look magical when the fading sun lights them up.
The pond border hasn’t lived up to previous years. None of my Dahlias have flowered this year. I have no idea why, they were all new tubers as I lost my collection to hungry mice over the winter. I usually have Dahlias such as Chat Noir in this border adding real glamour. As well as failing Dahlias the plants at the back of the border haven’t performed well as they rely on the overflow from the pond behind and it has a leak. So as I said in last month’s post this is going to become a bog border. I just need to get on and fill in the pond ideally with the soil from the new pond. However, that is on the waiting list until I have finished moving the daisies around.
The Woodland Border was planted this spring and I worry every time I look at it as it looks so bare. However, I know the plants will bulk up and I have to be patient. I am ordering lots of Dogs Tooth Violets to go in here as well as dwarf Narcissus. The Witch Hazel leaves have already turned and fallen, hopefully it will come through the winter and I will get to enjoy its spring blooms for the first time next spring.
The top of the wall border is very slowly morphing into the Cottage Garden border. I am playing a game of moving daisy plants from here to the slope and plants from there into this border. I can’t quite see how I want the border yet but I have a planting list of: roses, delphs, lupins, peonies, astrantia, aquilegas, foxgloves.
So that is the garden at the end of August. I do hope that by the September post I will have something more substantial to show you so it looks like something has changed rather than me just saying it will.
If you would like to join in the End of Month meme you would be very welcome. Just leave a link to your post in the comments box.
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