The Heatwave

 Hopefully the worst of the intense heat has passed although temperatures in the high twenties are forecast for the next fortnight.

Whilst being confined to the house at the hottest part of the day, which was often from 11 o'clock in the morning until 9 in the evening, I tried to use my time usefully as far as the garden was concerned. I sowed seeds of wallflowers, sweet williams and antirrhinums for next year. They were doing fine indoors but as I have the dining room covered in seedlings from January to May I felt that I couldn't leave them indoors indefinitely so that we never had a tidy house. Although I must say that there were no comments from the Under Gardener!! So they migrated to the porcherie/potting shed with a view to moving them to the cold frames when the weather cooled a little. However, as there is no sign of that at present they are languishing in their halfway house.

In addition to producing plants for next year I did a lot of thinking and redesigning, John has apoplexy when I say "I've been thinking" as he says it always means more work for him. Well yes that's true and he has started by widening one side of the iris walk. The soil is atrocious there (something I didn't know when I had my new ideas). It is vitualy all stone so we have been moving garden compost from the bins at the end of the alley (ie. from one end of the garden to the other) to try and create some soil to plant into.

Stage one of the new design is to plant a dwarf lavender hedge adjacent to the grass. I scoured the internet and found 50 inexpensive plants which arrived today.

I will be ordering the bulbs for stage 2 next week.

Hay Making

 Each year at about this time John cuts the prairie beds. We try, unsuccessfully, to encourage wild flowers to proliferate but in fact there were far more varieties in amongst the grass when we arrived than there are now. Wildflower meadows are the "in" thing and we are told to fluff about cutting and scalping them etc. etc. but the traditional method of allowing live stock to graze them is obviously more successful.

However as we haven't got the odd flock of sheep knocking around John has to substitute and it's jolly hard work. He can initially cut the very long grass with the mower but then has to rake it up, deposit it else where (if it stays and rots down it increases the fertility, a total no no for wild flowers the experts tell us) cut it and rake it again. Thank goodness this is a once a year job.

We have rain forecast for tomorrow so he has started the procedure as it is easier when the grass is dry.

Burnt Up

 We are quick to share with you our successes in the garden but we don't often show you the disasters....until now.

 

 Each year we become more and more aware of climate change and this year the soaring temperatures have brought it fully into focus. So much so that we are taking a radical look at the garden design, watch this space. It seems that we have to consider each season as an entity. Whilst July and August are just two months of the year their impact is profound (drought, 40 degree C temperatures) similarly at the opposite end of the spectrum January and February can bring very low temperatures. However we have not had temperatures of around -18 degrees C for a few years. With climate change I am fearful that such a winter is looming!! Should I lift my dahlias and cannas or not? A gardeners worries are never over.