This week with the garden team- late May

The weather has been challenging this week with crazy amounts of rainfall one day and beautiful sunshine the next. The changing weather conditions challenge us as gardeners as much as the plants we nurture and care for. We have had a very soggy few days to start, but the sunshine brightened all our spirits as the week progressed!

In the garden this week we have been continuing keeping on top of weeds and editing out self seeders. Monday started in the Gravel Garden where Verbena bonariensis has enjoyed seeding around everywhere! This plant has lovely mauve flowers on tall stems later in the summer but produces lots of seedlings in the gravel. We remove some of the seedlings to create the density of plants throughout the borders that we wish to see: more of a delicate haze than a dense wall of flowers.

This process requires thinking about where the seedlings are growing in relation to other plants in the border as well as the eventual high and spread of individual plants. It’s a great creative and thinking process. Elsewhere in the garden we have been removing any foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) that do not have pure white flowers. Beth preferred the picture created by the white spires of the foxgloves and always removed any seedlings that were purple, pink or a variation, so we continue creating this picture around the garden. If seedlings of other colours are not removed, when pollination occurs, flower colour can vary and seed collected may not produce white flowers. It’s tough sometimes as some of the colours are beautiful, however once completed, the picture of repeated white spires makes for beautiful views throughout the garden. 

We have two areas of pot displays in the garden, one at the Gravel Garden entrance and one on Beth’s patio. We spent a day planting up the pots to create a lovely display over the summer months. The Gravel Garden pots were potted up with sun loving perennials and half hardy plants, whereas the patio pots were planted with a range of plants for more shady conditions. It’s always a fun exercise to do as a team, choosing the plants and positioning the pots to create a picture that will grow and develop over the coming months.

Written by gardener Cathy