Welcome to my diary. I write a short account of the happenings in my garden every month. It is quite amazing how year on year the seasons change, which makes our weather so interesting - you can never predict what is going to be growing at any particular time.

Julia’s Diary

SPRING

Yes I know it is now considered summer but like the warm weather I have been rather tardy in turning up.  In less than 2 weeks we shall be half way to Christmas and the days will begin to shorten. Enough!

Lets see what has happened in my garden over the last 2 months.  When we had our spring show in April we thought there would be little to display as the weather had been so cold but our members came up trumps again and the daffodils and hellibors stole the show in the horticultural classes.  The floral art exhibits were amazing, they get better each show.  Spring in my garden presented some stars (see photos below) and once the warm weather did come, my, how things took off!  In early May it was our son’s 50th birthday, it was a beautiful day and all the family enjoyed lunch in the garden. (Isn’t that what gardens are for?)  You can see from the photo just how lush the garden was, yet only a couple of weeks earlier there was little to see.

The severe winter weather killed off my banana plant, but never mind. The lemon tree which I grew from a pip was severely cut back.  What resilient things plants are though, because it is shooting up from the bases of the old stems.  The pond took a time to get going and when the frogs and toads spawned there was little weed for them to attach their eggs and a lot sunk to the bottom, however, we have more tadpoles than I have ever seen.  The bees which I have written about several times (they are in our roof) were very quiet and I was getting worried about them as they have been there for over 50 years but then they began to forage and in the middle of May, to my surprise they swarmed.

The wild garden on the island in the front is looking good, but still no new species in spite of the yellow rattle doing so well.  I am still hoping for an orchid or 2 to turn up.

One plant that I never took a liking to, but was so popular a few years ago is Salvia hotlips.  Have you noticed that they are reverting back to just red rather than white as well – much nicer I think.

For the first time ever my Hostas have snail damage, even though they are in the same places in the garden as previous years.  Various suggestions abound for keeping the little blighters away, one which I didn’t think would work but have now had to change my mind, is the use of copper bands.  We have just returned from a week in Norfolk and the cottage where we stayed had 2 magnificent pots of completely unscathed Hostas both with metal bands wrapped round.  So, worth a try.  I’ll be back later in the month.

            Till then – Happy gardening.

Julia

Enjoying the garden

A pretty corner

Juda Tree

Scilla peruviana