The Garden in July

After a truly stunning summer weekend – wine tasting with Winetrust 100 on Friday evening, a refreshing cocktail on a Shoreditch rooftop followed by dinner at The Boundary on Saturday and a refuge from the sun in the very cool Servants Quarters at Icksworth House on Sunday afternoon, I am now sitting in the heat of the evening writing this review of the garden highlights today. I am largely leaving the garden to do its own thing at the moment; a little dead heading, propping up a few plants but nothing too strenuous. This is a time to sit back and relax. It will be all change soon though – the bulb catalogues have arrived and I know that I will need to start off the seeds for the flowering biennials and autumn vegetables before the end of the month. But more on that in a later post – for now lets just enjoy the moment!

The Terrace Border is abundant with roses this year. This will be their third season since planting and they are really getting into their stride. In this border I have the David Austin roses Gertrude Jekyll, William Shakespeare, The Pilgrim and Louise Odier. The lupins and poppies that were so beautiful in June have finished flowering, but the salvia and scabious are looking lush and the dahlias, fuchsias, phlox and veronicastrum are filling out nicely and should be in flower for August.

There are still a few foxgloves lingering from the early summer show:

The climbing roses on the pergola are in full bloom. These were very woody and overgrown when we arrived, so after a very hard prune they are regrowing with fresh vigour:

I use astrantias in many of my borders and have varieties ranging from pure white through to pale pink and this darker pink then to a deep purple red. I site them next to alchemilla mollis or dark purple heucharas as the foliage of both plants sets off the delicate astrantia flowers so well.

In the hot borders behind the greenhouse achillea Terracotta is colouring up and soon will make a great partnership with the crocosmia Lucifer that you can see behind it.

The Terrace Bed that held the dark tulips in spring is now awash with salvias, a garden clover and lupin Masterpiece, which is still producing more flowers.

Lavender is flowering all over the garden. I particularly like this view of the Lavender Walk, which I showed a few weeks ago when the allium Purple Sensation and the laburnum trees were in flower.

Finally I had to share a photo of my Chelsea purchases this year. I bought a number of these glass orbs and they fit perfectly into the foliage beds that surround the summer house, providing great reflections of the greenery and the building. It will be interesting to see how they work in the garden as the season progresses.

I have fingers crossed that this beautiful weather continues for a few more days!

Insert your profile info here, by going to Users -> Your Profile -> Biographical Info. Profile image (avatar) comes from gravatar.com. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam faucibus ornare lectus nec cursus.