Wettest June since 1914
The figures are now out, and June 2007 is the wettest since detailed records began in 1914 (you would have thought they would be too busy fighting a war to be measuring rainfall) and the garden has taken full advantage of my non-interference. I was away on holiday last week, and today was the first chance I had to go and wrestle with Nature since my last post.
The annual border is almost at its peak. Everything has flowered now except the Larkspur. The order of flowering was: alyssum, night-scented stocks, cornflowers, poppies and lavatera.
I like the very dark purple poppies, but perhaps I didn’t need to have the very dark purple cornflowers too. Perhaps one or the other would have been better.
I was pleased to see that the Waldsteinia is not only still alive, but has produced the specified yellow flowers. Well done that plant.
The picture below shows the scale of the rearrangement I am doing. Most of the plants in the picture below will be replanted in the new garden. I have had very few losses. The magnolia I bought from Wilkinson is just a stalk, so I think that has probably had it. However, the climbing hydrangea is trying to, and the pieris looks good too, so Wilkinson’s plants are pretty good value overall. The one with the enormous pointy green leaves is Crocosmia Lucifer – you can see its flower. Mum gave me a few corns of it about ten years ago. I think I have a pretty good supply of it now.
As for what I spent my time doing today when I wasn’t taking pictures – well, it was spent on the ivy, mainly. It was totally out of control. I have cut back most of it now, but it is doing a lot of damage to my fence panels. I am wondering whether I can dig some of it out from between the fence panels and posts with a kitchen knife before the stalks get thicker and break the panels. Glyphosate would be better, but unfortunately it is not my ivy. I also cut the new grass again with shears, and cut off the side shoots of the tomatoes. I got slightly rained on a couple of times, but mainly it stayed dry.