August 15th 2015

Busy bees and best blooms

The weather’s been unseasonably chilly and dull, although the accompanying rain has benefited our dry, sandy soil.  In between showers I’m deadheading and cutting back border plants that are past their best. In the vegetable garden I’ve cleared away the broad beans, which suffered dreadfully from blackfly, but the ladybirds in the garden now should help.  We’ve made fresh sowings of beetroot, spring onion and lettuce, and are pulling some of the best carrots we’ve ever grown.  I made jam from the last strawberries and was amused to see a young squirrel plundering the strawberry bed daily for leftovers. Our bees have been really busy despite the changeable weather and we’ve harvested our first honey. The cut flower patch is full of cornflowers, nigella, calendula, sweet peas, zinnias and dahlias.   It almost looks too good to pick! In a  DIY store, I snapped up a couple of coreopsis, a geum and an Iceland poppy – all good sized plants for the princely sum of £1 each. They just needed a good soak and deadheading and are now filling gaps in our hot border.  Currently, my favourite plants are the two hydrangea ‘Red Red’ either side of the front door.  They replaced a pair of pyracanthas that were nothing but trouble, the thorns puncturing wheelbarrow and bicycle tyres and scratching us to bits each year at pruning time. They were hard work to remove but the hydrangeas are such an improvement, it was well worth the effort!