End of Month View: August 2013

Deschampsia in front garden

Oops I’m a bit late with my own meme – sorry lost a day somewhere.

Anyway here we are at the end of August and it has been so dry.  Everyone keeps saying its been a good gardening summer but I’m not so sure.  My garden has struggled with the lack of rain and some of my established shrubs are showing signs of distress.  I think  we might not see the results of the lack of moisture until next year, I know this makes me sound a little pessimistic but generally most of our gardens aren’t designed to have so little rain.

The front ‘lawn’ is looking nice and green but that is because it is mainly clover and not grass!!  I am not at all convinced by the line of Deschampsia at the end of the lawn.  As I think I said last month in my mind they would be much shorter.  I am sure they came from the same batch of seedlings as some I have in the woodland border which are indeed much shorter and I wonder if the tall growth is due to the brighter conditions.  I think the line is too much like a screen or even a long full stop.  I am more or less convinced that I should redistribute the plants in this area but in more of a drift around the shrubs and then extend the edging of Alchemilla mollis that runs along the sides of the lawn across the bottom.
I have tidied and cut back along the right hand side of the lawn in front of the beech hedge and I have decided to let the Alchemilla mollis spread and fill this border as the acid yellow flowers look great with the young beech leaves.  I am going to try some Fritillaria meleagris here too since someone I knows says they do well for her in a similar location and there seems to be general dissension as to whether they need a lot of moisture or not so we shall see.  It does get very damp here in the  spring so they have a chance.

The driveway border isn’t at its best.  It looked great earlier in the year with the Echium but now it’s looking a little patchy and to be frank dull.  I have some gaps to fill and I need to relocate some bearded iris elsewhere in the garden so these will go  in here as the other iris already in the border is thriving.  I was then thinking of adding some perennial wallflowers, Erysimum, since the foliage color will work with the iris and they flower for ages.  I don’t think  I will be bothering with the annual Rudbeckia here next year.

So that’s the front garden at the end of August.  I can’t say that I enjoy being in the front garden any more than I used to; I did hope that doing a monthly meme on it would encourage me but it hasn’t.  I am coming to the conclusion that this is a space I will never really want to spend time in so it has to be able to look after its self a lot of the time and look fab.  So if that is the case I think I need to be considering foliage more than flowers.

Anyone is welcome to join in this monthly meme.  You can use it however you want – focus on one area, go for a tour, whatever works for you.  Personally, I find the discipline of considering a specific part of the garden on a monthly basis for a year makes me look at it more analytically and this has helped me improve other areas of the garden.  If you do  decide to join in please leave a link to your post in the comment box before so we can come and have a nose at your garden.