wendyswonderlandgarden

My passion in life is gardening and specifically growing flowers from seed

Category: summer

Agapanthus

Bluebell cottage garden & nursery visit 2022

After a real heatwave here in the UK the weather is much cooler today and ideal for a visit to the Bluebell Cottage garden and nursery in Dutton, nr Warrington. I’ve never been before but have bought plants in the post and was eager to see the gardens, I wasn’t disappointed, they are beautiful, so pretty and colourful with just the sort of herbaceous plants I like. I was also impressed they manage to stand up for themselves with no support. Mine certainly need staking. I took lots of pictures and here are some.

https://www.bluebellcottage.co.uk

Address
Bluebell Cottage 
Lodge Lane 
Dutton 
Nr Warrington 
Cheshire 
WA4 4HP

Telephone 
01928 713718

Map and Travel Directions
Location Info Page

Dahlia Mystic Dreamer

Blue & pink hydrangea

Wordless Wednesday- delphinium about to flower

Mock orange

RHS Bridgewater, Manchester visit June 2022

This was probably my first garden visit since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Its a new garden and only 30 minutes from me and the most northerly RHS garden in this country so I have been eager to visit for a while. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was very pleasantly surprised as I don’t think there was a part I didn’t like. I love cottagey garden long borders with lots of flowers and that’s a lot of what I saw yesterday. We also had the unique opportunity to see some of the only professionals in the world trimming a cloud bonsai tree with tiny scissors and being watched by several other staff. The garden isn’t finished yet and I’m sure if and when I go again it is likely to be different again as more areas currently in progress are finished and opened to the public. I took lots of pictures and here are some of them.

Rose ‘summer song’

Smelling and looking beautiful in my garden at the moment. I’ve had 4 new roses over the past 2 years including this one and I think it’s been a good year for them, they and the others mores established ones have flowered very well this year and are still going

Summer 2021 review

I’m sad to say the end of summer is here and as much as I hate the hot weather that come with it and the lack of rain I like the garden in summer. I’ve had a mixed year with seeds and my vegetable growing but a good year flower wise.

I grew Tithonia, sunflowers, poppies, sweetpea and cosmos from seed this summer. The Tithonia are lovely but only started flowering in late August, however, I will definitely grow them again as they are still flowering and we don’t have much orange in the garden.

Tithonia

The sunflowers have done really well and are still going at more than 6 foot tall with multiple flowers per plant.

The poppies did ok but they never last long and so I often miss them flowering and therefore have no pictures. The cosmos I sowed late and as per their usual habit haven’t even considered flowering yet. They start later every year. The sweetpeas have been lovely although eaten by the greenfly. I have a few ladybirds on the plants but they are overcome with too much food I think.

The vegetables have been interesting, I sowed carrots, courgettes and tomatoes. The carrots I harvested today and look more like radishes.

Carrots that look like radish

The courgettes keep flowering but don’t create any fruit and my tomatoes while very healthy plants didn’t have many fruit but were largely neglected I think. I planted them direct into ground this year for the first time and I’m not sure I’ll do it again.

However, the roses including 2 new ones have been beautiful this year. The helenium, penstamen and many other cottage garden plants have been good and are still flowering or at least they were when I last checked but today it’s been so wet I imagine they may have suffered.

Rose Hot chocolate
Rose Summer song – new this year

Wordless Wednesday- Japanese Anemone