Garden at the beginning of June

The garden's beginning to look like it's finally coming together now we're in June. Things are shooting up (although not as much as if we'd actually had some rain!). I've also filled most of the raised bed in the picture with a perennial plant collection (72 plants!!) from JParkers, although mostly they're too small to be seen yet. Hopefully they will spread out (if we get some rain) and fill in the gaps. If we get some rain.

I'm really pleased with this miniature rose. It was a housewarming present when I bought my house in Newark five years ago and has been living with Mum for the last few years. It came to Staines at Christmas, and I've since potted it on and given it a big prune, and it's completely covered in flowers now!

Some of the salad leaves have bolted and gone to seed due to the lack of rain, but these are the latest sowings coming along (I plant another couple of rows every fortnight), with some autumn fruiting raspberries in the background.

And my sweet peas started flowering yesterday, just in time for garden-at-the-beginning-of-the-month. I'm really impressed with them as I love sweet peas, but had never grown them myself. These are the Old Fashioned mix Sweet Pea from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. They smell glorious.

I'm really impressed with this hydrangea too. A year ago it was a semi-dead mess of bits of stick, clinging onto life underneath a particularly rank diseased buddleia. But removing the buddleia, a massive prune, lots of soil enrichment and some Sequestrene and it's looking a lot better. I think the leaves look pretty like that, although I suspect the yellow veining affect may be due to iron deficiency and it could do with more Sequestrene?

Our neighbour gave us some self-seeded hellebores from his plants. Haven't decided where to plant those yet, but it's nice to have something that will have some colour earlier in the year. I'm quite tempted to get a Dicentra plant for the same reason, and I think their little heart shaped flowers are cool.

And I am very very very pleased with this:

It's a fuchsia I grew myself from a cutting. Clever or what?!