In the garden

Every time I’ve looked at the garden this week it has made me sigh – and not with pleasure!  The rain that we so badly needed has made everything shoot up, including the weeds, the grass is long enough to hide a small tiger (although that could have been the cat!) and I’m behind with my border-renovation plans.

The sun stayed out for long enough yesterday to dry the grass so that I could cut it, though, and I also attacked some of the weeds in the borders – goose grass, couch grass, buttercups and dandelions are the villains of the moment – and it was very satisfying to be able to pull them out in huge clumps, roots and all.

Then I stood up, looked around, and sighed again.  All that time spent and to me, it didn’t look like I’d done much at all.  That’s always the way with a garden, isn’t it?  It’s easy to say “oh, it’ll look better next month” or “when I’ve sorted out that border/divided those plants/sown more seeds” but actually, I have plenty of plants in the garden that are doing wonderful things of their own right now so I decided I would ignore the areas that shouted “We need more work!” and I would look at the plants that look beautiful right now.

Like this one.  The first flower on my climbing rose “Emily Grey”, given to me by my lovely friend Sonia …

Aquilegias, forget-me-nots and Welsh poppies in a self-seeded community …

The pale pink flower of a black elder, Sambucus nigra, about to open, framed against its beautiful black, feathery leaves …

Mountain cornflower, Centaurea montans …

A solitary purple Allium which has somehow made its way to the bottom of the garden …

Corsican hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius), aquilegia and Weigela florida …

One of my favourites – the furry (though quite prickly) leaves of Papaver orientale or Oriental poppy, ready to flower very soon …

The smoke bush, Cotinus “Grace” next to Sambucus nigra and yet more Welsh poppies.  They’re all over the garden and I love their bright, sunny yellow faces.

I went back into the house feeling quite cheerful.  I might not have done as much as I would have liked to, or needed to (and quite frankly, who ever does in a garden?!), but what I did do was notice and appreciate what was already there.  And yesterday, that was quite achievement enough.

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6 Responses

  1. Jo says:

    I think it's all looking lovely. Everything seems to put a spurt on at this time of year, including the weeds and the grass. Ours was cut last week but it's ready for mowing again.

    • Winwick Mum says:

      Thank you! We're getting to that time of year when the grass goes mad and needs cutting more often – but that has to be better than it being brown and crispy because of a drought! xx

  2. Campfire says:

    You do have a beautiful garden, full of lovely plants, mine has become a bit despoiled since I dug out a lot of stuff which roots were almost travelling to Australia and South America! I have a Sambucus Nigra and it is very tall but it's got very straggly this year, ought to have chopped it down.

    It was lovely to meet you by pure chance in The Black Sheep today. Together with that, and chats to all the other lovely people there, I went out laughing, quite a contrast to the person going in feeling sorry for herself!

    I'm looking forward to looking at your heel tutorial!

    • Winwick Mum says:

      Thank you! It was so nice to meet you too, and when you said that you read my blog – well, it felt fantastic! 🙂 I'm so glad you had a lovely time at Black Sheep – I certainly did and stayed far longer than I expected to – I nearly missed the school run!

      You can cut Sambucus down each year (much as you would do with a Buddleja) and that will stop it going straggly, so that might be worth trying.

      I'll be posting the sock tutorial as soon as I can – I'm frantically knitting so that I've got plenty of photos to put with it so hopefully it won't be much longer xx

  3. Lisa from Lisas Life says:

    Your garden looks lovely 🙂 So glad I clicked this link from Facebook, saw a black elderflower at a garden centre today and had no idea what it was! Gorgeous 🙂

    • Winwick Mum says:

      Thank you! Yes, it is a lovely plant, the leaves are attractive at so many times of the year xx

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