Fingers Crossed, the Mitcheldean Garden 2021
High Summer

This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2021. Click here for the index.

The heat wave didn't last, for the most part August was cool, cloudy and dry. The runner beans were not happy and the other plants sulked to a greater or lesser extent. Apart from some judicious pruning and grass cutting, I left the lower garden largely to its own devices and Yuehong visited only for basic watering. I didn't condition the main beds at the bottom with horse manure this year and, probably as a result, the normally precocious purple and white dahlias which I had dumped there sulked too. I have now imposed some kind of Apartheid on them as they completely dominate just about any other dahlias we have and seem immune to the cold; I left one in a planter at the top by accident and it survived the coldest winter days we have experienced in the last 10 years there.

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The sun, when it appeared, allowed enough time to race outside with the camera. Eventually we had deduced that our clematis failures had been caused by under watering, so now they get the same treatment as the hanging baskets and for most of them we have to look up to see the blooms. 

On one of our garden centre visits, no sooner had we arrived at the reduced price area than these two ready planted hanging baskets appeared. At 'better than half price' Yuehong could not resist them, they are 'Indian Summer' petunias, they have since had a second and third 'flush', here they are actually resting in part shade. Look carefully and you can see that we have had to invest in a new garden clock, it's 'Made in China' plastic despite appearances. 

I have been banished from the immaculate patio apart from changing hoses on the tap which is very stiff. Yuehong refuses to use it since I told her off for hitting it with a hammer, pliers being more appropriate. At the other end, we have two experimental vines framing the French windows.

We got these Thunbergia from Lidl, they started off as a six inch stalk and now the tops have vanished into the Albertine rose. They'll have to be cut back severely to stand any chance of surviving the winter in one of the greenhouses.

The only immediately visible evidence of its former status as a vegetable patch are two rows of runner beans squeezed in at the bottom end, although behind on the right are a few broad beans. I have gradually added more and more gladioli, the latest being job lots from Lidl at a price which was as attractive as the flowering spikes. I've taken to supporting them with canes which has reduced casualties from wind and rain to a very low level.

These are two views looking back out to the 'new' middle flower bed, Yuehong tells me the white flower is phlox, it was an outcast from her lily bed. She has now discovered that 'other colours are available' and as a result it has become desirable and we shall plant more next year, God knows where, though.

Yuehong confided in me that she thought there was a problem with her lilies but, in truth, it was more a problem with her crocosmia which had started to fall forward onto them. I waded in and tied them back and in due course the lilies were as splendid as ever and next year she has a huge batch of bright red ones which need to find a home here, the not very successful gladioli will have to go, they will become my problem children.