A WEEK IN MY GARDEN - 11 JULY THE LONG BORDER AND MORE

Hello, and welcome back to the garden.  It's really too warm to do much, isn't it?  Unless of course you decide to get at at 5 in the morning.  In which case you can get a whole day's work in by 11.  I'm not recommending this you understand, but I did do it.  It meant I could see if it really is better to take photos of gardens at the crack of dawn as I believe the professional photographers do.  The photos of the long border were taken at 5 this morning.  The others featured this week were taken later in the day.  See what you think.

It's peak time for the Long Border so I'll show you what's happening there. It's timed to look its best in late summer and so this year that means now.

Agapanthus and White Perennial Sweet Pea

As regular readers of the blog know well, the Long Border is based in the colour theories of Gertrude Jekyll and specifically the Long Border she made at her home Munstead Wood.  The border begins with plants in cool colours of blue and white shown above.

It moves on to yellow flowers and then orange.

Hemerocalis Plena Flora in the foreground

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' and Lilium African Queen

 Then scarlet and cherry red take over as we reach the centre point of the border.  Gertrude first trained as an artist and her arrangement of colours is based on the latest colour theories using the colour wheel and complementary colours.  The difference is she applied them to plants in a border.

Bright pink Phlox 

Gertrude considered that scarlet was most effective if accompanied by a little pale grey as shown below.

Monarda and yellow Achillea

After all those hot colours the mind craves something cooler according to Gertrude and so white and pink furnish the final section of the border.

Filipendula Rubra Venusta

Achillea Ptarmica 'Double Diamond'

So far so pretty - but not everything goes according to plan in the garden.  Sometimes there are disasters.  In fact 'Disaster of the Week' may become a new feature in this blog.  I have a few to choose from.

I have grown Nasturtiums for many years and this year I thought I would fill a planter by the back door with them.  A few days ago Mr B was admiring the pretty white butterflies on the lavender nearby.  Then one morning this happened.  I've never seen the like, but I now know their modus operandi.  They lurk on the underside of the leaves - see below.

How yucky. Lets move on.  The Rose Garden is looking pretty with Rosa Bonica in flower.

Apart from dead heading roses, the other major task this week was giving the box a cut before spraying for box moth.  It's a bit early to cut them, but I don't think these got cut last year so they had got a bit out of shape.  You can see the bottoms got a good nibbling by the box moth caterpillars earlier in the year when they took me by surprise.

The job - part way through

 All the hot weather means that the pot plants need frequent watering, but they have been enjoying the sun I think and are looking good (in my humble opinion).

I'm going to finish this week's post with a photo of the Greenhouse.  There's plenty going on it there, but I think I will save that for next week as time is getting on.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely week in your garden.  Until next time ...