Garden at the beginning of July 2012

Where did June go? Time seems to be going past faster and faster.
The garden is still looking lush thanks to the monumental amounts of rain we've had. Remember back in February when it looked like it was never going to rain ever again?!

The large green triffid thing in the raised bed in last month's pictures turned out to be a weed, so it was removed (and filled the garden waste bin!). So, we now have an empty space waiting to be filled with a New Plant. What a shame, we'll have to go to the garden centre (again).

We'd wanted to have a topiary box ball type thing in this tub, to smarten it up a bit and to avoid having to keep replanting the tub, but the ones we'd seen on sale were £25-£30 (ouch). Then I spotted the "Hedging" section in the garden centre, where a pack of 10 tiny box plants were considerably cheaper than third the price of one huge one, or a slightly bigger one could be bought individually for £3.99. So this is it, planted in the tub and then trimmed into a vaguely ball type shape.It can't be that difficult to make a topiary ball, can it? It's not like I want to try something ambitious, like a topiary sheep. Now there's an idea...

Everything is growing and flowering like mad now. This is one of the sempervivums, which now looks like something off Doctor Who.

 

And a few firsts of the year. The first flower on the clematis (this was a special offer one bought last year).

 The first sweet pea (from some free seeds that came with a magazine).

 First flowers on the hydrangeas. Believe it or not, this hydrangea is called "Bluebird", but because of our soil type they come out  pink!

 And the first flower on a fuchsia. The fuchsias aren't as big this year, I think it must be the lack of sunshine (can't be lack of water!!).

These are two new fuchsias, which the OH bought me. Last year I bought a Fuchsia Mojo Boogie along with some other plants with my garden gift vouchers given to me when I left the last job. And the builder then stood on it whilst here doing some work last October. And I wasn't At All Impressed. Anyway, the OH found them again at the garden centre and got me two! I've put them in tubs (so I can move them somewhere else should the builder come anywhere near ever again), along with another one I grew from a cutting last year.

I've just finished reading "An ear to the ground: understanding your garden" by Ken Thompson, which I'd highly recommend. It's a fun read, explaining some of the science behind gardening, and why things happen the way they do.