June 20th

I’m enjoying my roses!

Roses are among my favourite flowers and although our dry sandy soil isn’t ideal, I’m determined to grow as many as possible. Rose ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ is coming along really well along a trellis screen, the other end of which is Rose ‘Belvedere’. The former is flowering profusely, while the latter is covered in buds and normally flowers towards the end of June. Elsewhere we have ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ growing up and through the middle of a semi-hollow apple tree, ‘Charles de Mills’ in a couple of flower beds and ‘Desdemona’ in a huge terracotta pot. I water with a seaweed fertiliser as often as I remember and mulch those in the borders with copious amounts of garden compost.

Oriental poppies are in flower; I have some that are meant to be ‘Patty’s Plum’, but I’m not sure if they are the correct colour. They’re lovely though – apart from the one that had a bright orange flower, definitely mislabelled! I treated myself to some new dahlia tubers this year to replace some that rotted overwinter. I started them off in pots in the greenhouse and they’re now growing really strongly and have been hardened off. I’m putting five ‘Bishop of Dover’, which has dark foliage and white, single flowers, into a large terracotta pot and the rest will find a home in the borders once I’ve pulled out forget-me-nots and had a little tidy up.

In the vegetable garden, crops are growing well. Strawberries are ripening, we’ve had several pickings of asparagus and spinach and lettuce ‘Salad Bowl’ is taking over. Parsnips and carrots have germinated well too. I’ve also picked the first beetroot, not in itself amazing but a huge improvement on last year when not one was edible!

My Highlight

The mallard duckling we rescued last month is happy and growing fast.