June in my garden was very much a month of two halves. The first half of the month the garden was green and lush, and then the hot weather hit. Our garden, like many, has become drier and with very little rain arriving or forecast, it looks very different. We also had the long-awaited tree work booked in, typically on the first of the very hot days so our garden had a double whammy to cope with.
We have taken to watering the pots in our garden every few days, as they are suffering the most. But with hosepipe bans likely to be announced we’re also looking at how we can use our ‘grey’ household water more efficiently. This means using our washing up water on non-edibles, and potentially a bucket in the shower for the same purpose. It makes a lot of sense for us all to reduce our water consumption and consider how we treat what is after all a valuable resource. And it’ll take some getting used to, I’m sure.
While I’m missing the green and lushness of our garden in the first part of the month, the trees were long overdue a cut. They were due for their usual cut in the autumn of 2020, but that didn’t happen what with it being a most peculiar year. Once things had started to return to more normality than there had been, we had terrible trouble trying to find someone to replace our usual tree man who had retired. Both our neighbours and us had tried several people, who either showed up, quoted and then ghosted us, or didn’t even turn up after making arrangements to. Incredibly frustrating, but we got there in the end.
At the start of the month we had our bunting up for the Queen’s Jubilee, and it looked so good it stayed there right up until the day before the tree work, when along with the strings of lights, I took it down. The lights have finally gone back up, but I’ve resisted putting the bunting up, though it does look pretty!
I wasn’t expecting many cherries from our little cherry tree this year. It tends to go in cycles with less fruit following a year of abundance. Some years the birds beat us to them, and others - like this year - there’s a truce and we share the cherries. As this was due for a catch-up cut, I didn’t think the cherries would survive - but they did, and they were also enjoyed by the team cutting the trees too. A perk of the job I’m sure.
Flower-wise the mock orange was starting to make its fragrance known, and in the back beds some foxgloves were starting to flower.
Towards the house the fatsia was thriving - it needs a cut really, and it’s easy to do, but I know like anything, cutting it will make it grow even more vigourously. So I postponed its cut in June (and now in July I’m wishing I hadn’t!), mainly because working out where to cut takes more time than actually doing the work.
The hydrangeas which I have in a pot close to the patio started to flower. I thought I’d lost them, but this one came back - the other one under the tree canopy wasn’t quite so resilient. These have been great to watch develop, and I’d definitely buy more ‘Annabelles’ for a future garden. The pretty geraniums I brought back from my FILs garden are flowering, and with a ‘Chelsea chop’ have flowered again since.
The roses on the patio are doing their best to grow within the frame I’ve provided them with, but not quite managing to get in the right spot. But never the less I think they look pretty good. These white roses are pretty prolific and while I’ve been deadheading, they’ve been flowering as much as they can.
You can’t beat home grown cherries! Throughout the month we’ve had regular visits from butterflies, with this orange one (most likely a moth) paying repeat visits most afternoons. I’m under no illusion it was the same one, but humour me.
Midway through the month, the outlook for our garden changed as I mentioned above. The difference in one day is amazing, but with a team of six men working hard all day it’s easy to see why they made such great inroads. But it’s a lot of garden and tree cuttings to dispose of, and as we teamed up with our next door neighbours as they also had some trees cut, we were fortunate that all of it went over the fence and through their garden. We can’t thank them enough for this, though the lads working weren’t quite so appreciative, though they did managed to take one of the trellis panels down to help, the fence panel wasn’t budging.
Isn’t it amazing how much of a difference it makes?
It was the harshest cut we’ve given our tress, but as I said earlier in this post it was long overdue. It is a shame to cut so much of them, but they do need managing. We’re not even two months on as I write this post, and all of the trees are sprouting new branches and leaves, so I’m confident they will re-leaf over the next few months.
Our tallest - and wonkiest - foxglove was a casualty of the day felled by a falling branch. There wasn’t much to be done with this so I cut it down - but that too is showing its resilience and it is now regrown and flowering again - though I seem to have cornered the market in a miniature foxglove! I’ll share the picture of that with you next month!
How’s your gardening coping with the warmer weather?
