wendyswonderlandgarden

Greetings from a cool, dull and damp garden. Just my favourite sort of gardening weather really, well maybe a bit more sun would be nice !

I just wanted to share some pictures of my garden at the moment. The first is a cyclamen I’ve just planted, the next one we’ve had for years. I’m very pleased with my zinnia, grown from free Gardeners world seeds! I love zinnia and find them very easy to grow. I seem to think Monty said the opposite but we do live in very different parts of the country. I’ve also included pictures of my sweetpeas, again grown from seed and they’ve done amazingly and also a very pretty fuschia!

My poor tomato plants have been a bit neglected by me this year and I’m not sure they liked the hot dry weather at all that much. They are outside though and not in over hot greenhouse.

Today I’ve harvested the first of my beef steak tomatoes and look at it. It is ripe in theory but not sure what it will taste like

Greetings from a dull but much cooler garden. I’m so glad it’s cooled down and started raining again. However, it has gone a bit autumnal on us with nights getting darker earlier!

One of my favourite flowers is the poppy, both perennial and annual. My perennials didn’t do as well this year with some growing but not flowering at all and others with less buds than normal.

This one below is one of two annuals I bought from a local charity shop and has today flowered. They don’t normally last long so I’m glad I noticed it when I did. I did try to grow them from seed in my greenhouse this year but with little success. Still, never mind, I’ll try again next year

If you’ve followed my blog over the past few months you’ll know that in the northwest of England where I live we have been having a very hot and dry summer. The driest I can remember. It’s got me thinking about how we garden for this weather if it continues in years to come which we’ve been told it is likely to! We’ve narrowly avoided a hose pipe ban which is good, however, one of my neighbours is wasting water hosing his driveway and grass and I was hoping that could be stopped. My mum, by the way thought we should give up planting and gardening altogether if we have continued hot summers but I love my garden and am of course vehemently against it!

So, anyway, I’ve been looking at what is doing ok in the garden and what is not and here’s what I’ve noticed.

1. I’ve not watered the rudbeckia much and it’s thriving – I was threatening to reduce it as it takes up a lot of space but maybe that’s a bad idea

2. It’s been a good flowering year for the roses, some have been watered, others haven’t

3. It’s been good for budleijas, again plants that have been given little extra water

4. The lupins put on an amazing display at the beginning of the summer but have been finished flowering for weeks. I’m about to cut them back completely and ass if it makes a difference

5. The Argyranthemum has flowered very well with little water, and I’ve just dead headed it as there are new buds, however it does have wilder

6. However, the phlox and astilbe plants and some heucheras are very unhappy and mainly brown. The astrantia was also very unhappy but I’m not keen on them so it was a good chance to get rid of it.

7. The crocosmias seem to have finished very quickly

8. The grass is growing in funny looking tufts and the edges are growing well. So no getting away from the edge cutting job sadly!

9. Lastly for now, the lavender, again barely watered is doing well and the dahlias in pots (watered most days)

I am interested to know your thoughts as to the effect the weather has had on your garden this summer.

Apologies for the lack of blogs this last month, I haven’t done much in the garden except watering as we’ve had little rain for around 8 weeks and are the first part of the country to have a hose pipe ban at the weekend. Anyway, one thing I have been doing is clearing one of the big raised beds in the back garden as it was very untidy. I will show you pictures on another blog but today I’ve been plant shopping and one of the plants I just had to purchase is this delphinium ‘blue nile’. I have a few delphiniums in the front garden but none as beautiful as this

Greetings from an extremely dry and hot garden!

I grew these from seed and this blog is part of my firsts to flower feature this year. I wasn’t expecting this colour so will be interested to see what the others look like!

It’s called Mystic Dreamer and is probably the best of my dahlias. Some of them are on a final warning this year – flower or you leave!

Greetings from my very hot (30 degrees today) dry garden in South Manchester, where the skies are blue, the ground cracking with how dry it is and the water butts completely empty! We are watering with a hose pipe every other day but I’m so looking forward to rain soon. It’s been dry about 4 weeks now. I remember hot summers like this as a child where my normally brunette hair would go blonde! I know everyone says summer was hotter when they were younger but they really were at least til I was about 14!

I haven’t done much in the garden lately except weed – I’m not sure how they are still growing and tidy up! I have plans to dig over and improve some areas when the soil can be dug again!

I do, however, have lots in flower at the moment. It’s a good year for roses and even the new one I planted last year that looked so unhappy last autumn has a flower (see below). The sweetpeas are scrambling up the wigwams and smelling lovely.

So here’s a selection to of what’s flowering currently including the new delphinium I bought at Chatsworth flower show which is white as I’d hoped and patiently waiting to be planted. Maybe tonight!