A tempestuous month thus far. Lockdown (or lack of it) provokes fierce debate, face masks assume greater significance than simple protection, and the lifelong rhythm of school summer terms ending and sunny holidays commencing is fractured. Workplaces, and the methodologies which shape them, are carved apart, dissected for any seeds of hope, but there is a deep fear of public transport and crowded offices, and people like working from home. People like seeing green, if they can. Again, we count our blessings being here, tucked away in this most rural of English counties, bathed in green from dawn until dusk.
Warmth and rain has meant an extraordinary volume of green here in the garden as every weed seed dormant in the new beds has erupted. Really high winds have almost stripped the linden blooms off the lime tree, and necessitated some rapid staking manoeuvres for the inula and cardoons. And for the first time in months, the everyday jobs for any garden take centre stage here - weeding, hoeing, mowing, deadheading - which is deeply pleasing, a little nod to confirm that this is now reality and not a dream that will disappear with a pinch. There is always something to do: one of my original books of inspiration, “The Morville Hours” by Katherine Swift, says you can always spot a gardener as they are incapable of sitting down for long before a job presents itself to them and off they go again.
July is a strange month flower-wise, past the glories of peonies and their May counterparts, and not yet into asters and autumn golds, and for over a decade I have not been here much in the UK at this time of year, so am a little at sea with what to expect. For the beds around the terrace I prioritised planting to look good now, knowing that we would be here to see it (plus it is where we barbecue and eat outside), and yet wild shifts in weather between cold and wet and hot and windy, plus the sandy topsoil mix laid by the landscapers has resulted in surprises. Some geums have not stopped flowering, others are yet even to show a bud; the deep violet salvia “Amistad” is extremely happy; the grasses (calamagrostis “Karl Foerster” and stipa gigantea) are recalcitrant, the briza media thriv
And all the while the dahlias just keep on coming, magenta and orange and burgundy and crimson silks and satins shrugging off even torrential downpours. Every week I learn something new.
In the old beds on either side of the house, the clay soil sustains a band of stalwart performers. The old white hydrangea near the front door is in full bloom, now complemented by the indigo of the monkshood. Sweet peas have redoubled their flowering after heavy rain, with vases of that extraordinary perfume filling room after room indoors.
Roses and the steely blue of eryngium bourgatii, with lupins on their second flowering, give the driveway bed a softer, mistier feel than the blaze around the terrace. Next February the second stage of the landscaping begins, with large beds going in on either side of the house, so my work here this year will soon reverse, and require these old borders to be emptied of anything I want to keep or propagate. Another great cycle of planning beckons, but this time it will be more traditionally “cottage” planting, in the softer tones of creams, pinks and blues. I look at that enormous white hydrangea and wonder if it will manage a relocation.
But before I disappear mentally into a cloud of old roses and delphiniums, it is time for a crash course in fruit care. Not only do we have the quince and apple trees originally destined for the new beds but beached by lockdown in their “temporary” heeled-in positions, but I am now also the proud owner of black-, red- and white-currant bushes, plus some autumn fruiting raspberries canes ordered on a whim from the RHS last winter, all of which have already merrily fruited from their encampments on the front lawn. My only experience of soft fruit is the line of blackcurrants at my childhood home, to which my parents did precisely nothing, and which continued to keep us and the birds in summer puddings for years (and thanks here to #DigDelve for the fantastic recipe for summer pud recently). A quick flick through the relevant books suggests there are clematis-type guidelines on how and when to prune fruit bushes, all of which appear infinitely simpler than the arcane rulings around training apple trees as cordons. Training or torturing - yet an avenue of apple blossom would be lovely. And then there is the quince tree, purchased as much for its exquisite blossom as its fruit: where to site that to ensure every last petal does not get torn off as the Herefordshire westerlies come howling up the hill? Back to the drawing board, with all the optimism of inexperience.
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