A WEEK IN MY GARDEN - 25 JULY

I'm late with this weeks Hortus because I hadn't taken any photos of the garden despite being out there gardening all week.  It's just that it's come to that time of year when the borders are starting to look rather tired, and brown and crispy.  Everything needs a good cut back.  The hedges and topiary have lost their definition and need a trim.  None of this is very photogenic.

So I've just had a quick scoot round this evening and I'm ready to write. We start in the front garden and the white border.  The roses are hopefully about to flower again.

The Phlox are flowering though.  

And I've added this Gaura lindheimeri.  I've not grown this plant before, but I thought it looked rather lovely in the garden centre, so delicate and floaty.  It's supposed to have a long flowering period too.

Which brings us to the disaster of the week.  On that same garden centre visit on a Wednesday afternoon I bought a white flowered shrubby Potentilla.  It was a hot day so when I got it home I put it in a shady spot.  On Friday afternoon, after a lovely day out, I returned home to find it fried to a crisp.  Not just dry or wilted, but so dehydrated the leaves could be crumbled up by my fingers.  Now, I've killed a fair few plants in my time, but never as quickly as this.

In the Rose Garden I'm gradually giving the roses a second feed of granular fertiliser. It takes time because it gets so over grown in there I can't get to the base of the roses to feed them until I've cut things back.

The Rose Garden

Clematis Purpurea Plena Elegans clambers over one the large arches.  I had thought that I had read that this is a very old clematis dating to Elizabethan times, which I find rather romantic, but other websites say it dates from 1900.  The arch leads to paths and shrubberies that have got rather overgrown.  

It's getting to be a bit of a squeeze.  Time to get the loppers out.

This is what the borders are looking like right now, with Alchemilla seeding everywhere, overgrown geraniums and the occasional bit of willow herb and tree seedlings.  Time for a good tidy up.

The espalier crab apples have been tackled.  I find cutting them rather daunting, as if one injudicious cut will ruin them.  It doesn't of course, and they look much better for all the side shoots being cut back to three leaves above the basal cluster.  These instructions came from my RHS pruning and training handbook by the way.

More cutting back in the Knot garden where the low yew hedges were due a cut.

The box in the Rose Garden has also been trimmed today using a combination of electric hedge cutters as a first pass, and then the topiary shears to refine the shape. 

It was also time to mow the lawns for the first time in ages.  The dry weather has meant they've grown very little.  Mowing the lawns is Mr B's job, as it the vegetable potager of course.  This week he has a great success to report.  The courgette harvest has begun and we have enjoyed courgette and tomato soup. a courgette carbonara and courgette and chocolate cake!  I think these stripey ones look very pretty.  They are called Romanesco.

Thank you for joining me in the garden, but that's all I have to show you this week.  I hope to see you again next time.