July Garden Notes

From my notebook on nature and the garden - July 2024

Scabious black knight, snapdragon apple blossom, Japanese Anemone, Phlox cherry caramel, cosmos apricotta, unknown burgundy dahlia, Cosmos Rubenza, Cafe au Lait Royale Dahlia, cosmos purity, lavender, Cosmos antiquity, scabious summer fruits, scabious pure white

There are people who always seem to have control over their garden, things grow neatly, colours harmonise, they buy plants that do what they say they will and it all feels orderly and calm. And then there are gardeners like me, for whom every plant seems to grow in the wrong place, the tall standing in front of the small, the supposedly sturdy falling over themselves, shouldering through the crowded borders to reach the front instead of towering at the back as they’re meant to. It results in a wild tangle, a wayward tapestry of colours that have been stitched in the wrong places. It’s a beautiful chaos if you don’t mind the weeds.

I like to think it’s like the verges that line our country lanes, a wild gathering of flowers growing where they will. The cream Angelica umbels towering over clusters of wild oregano and deep blue self heal, bright pink sweet peas and the white tubular bells of the bind weed scrambling through everything, puffs of wild chicory and spires fire weed peeking out from the ditches. It works somehow, this wilderness, an antidote to the straight lines of the crops growing in the field, as my chaotic borders are to the neat stripes the boys mow into the lawns.