wendyswonderlandgarden

I hope this isn’t the end of summer just yet but I wanted to write a little review of my successes and failures in the garden this summer. I was on furlough from my job from mid March to the 1st June and luckily we had lovely sunny weather meaning I could spend more time gardening. This meant that I sowed more seeds and kept the garden as tidy as I could. There still seem to be a lot of gaps and we have extended a bit of border at the front which now need filling. I’ve taken some cuttings and hopefully they’ll be successful.

I grew sweetpeas from seed again as usual, 3 lots this time. 1 set in my propagater (these I collected from previous years), some container ones in the greenhouse and some in a pot as they were a present from a friend as a kit. The latter ones finished first but were very pretty. The others have been very successful, albeit with a little lull but have got going again quickly. I haven’t brought them in this year but try to keep on top of dead heading and so they keep flowering.

I sowed a cut flower called Daucus which is part of the carrot family, very easy to grow and although they need staking have flowered happily for months and continue to do so.

Every year I also sow cosmos and they come up easily and are very healthy plants however I think they are little divas in the plant world as they will flower only if they want and no amount of feed or nice compost, or even talking to will persuade them. I did some containers with them and other things and they are still not flowering even now. I have one plant that’s flowered for a few months and a couple with buds that only appeared in the last week. As much as I love them I have decided next year I will buy plants from the garden centre as they just aren’t worth all the effort.

I also grew some zinnia which are supposed to be purple but everyone is pink! They are good healthy plants and have flowered really well.

I also sowed some mini scented lupins, very easy to grow but all of them got ravished by the slugs and snails and never got near flowering

My long border has done well and I’ve added quite a few things to it, bergamot, heleniums and geraniums. The aim being a cottage garden style border full with no space for weeds