My garden is reassuring me that all is well underground in the healthy bug-filled soil and I can sit and wait till everything is ready to take its turn to shine. I can relax and just wait patiently.
The cottage garden style welcomes and treasures self-seeding plants. We can leave them alone or we can move them about but I choose to just leave them where they have decided to grow and work around that.
My south facing front garden looks fabulous through spring and into June but it has totally collapsed now, leaving great gaps of parched bare soil. My favourite style will have to adapt for future dry and hot seasons.
Cottage garden planting means beds, borders and containers crammed full of plants you love just because you love them. Let some weeds in, let in the wildlife and sit back and enjoy the mad profusion of the seasons.
My garden is 95% green planting and I get colour from pots and furniture – I don’t have the big blowsy flowers that would fill the borders full of colour. Maybe you don’t either. All is not lost.
I’m lucky to have fabulous scent in my front garden right now because I’ve planted shrubs which flower now, when days are dark and colour is scarce. Here are some suggestions for you.
In the low September sunshine some plants shine out more than others. Here are the loveliest in my garden right now.
Here is a short practical blog showing how cutting my perennial plants back to the ground now will be good for the garden and good for the soil. I can spread compost in the new spaces and new growth will be up within a week or so. It takes a spurt of courage to hack away at growing plants but do it now and your garden will look for for months.
Here are Six Signs of Life in my garden and Chelsea Physic Garden this week. Six plants providing scent, colour, food for wildlife or bursting into bud ready for the Spring
A few small additions can bring more wildlife into your garden
As autumn moves on we can find various little things in the garden to enjoy and be thankful for
This week has been so sunny and gorgeous I had lots of things I could show you and have lots of lovely photos of autumn sunshine. Here are Six.
Wonderful hardy geraniums from Cranesbill Nursery
Hardy geraniums In my very first blog in 2016 I wrote about my love for wonderful hardy geraniums here They really are some of the…
Real flowers and artificial flowers – both fabulous
I've recently discovered some online artificial flowers from Alex James that I think are beautiful and look wonderful either on their own or mixed with…
How to introduce a new colour in a cottage garden
A new colour in early Spring Here's a way to introduce a new colour in a cottage garden in early Spring. Plants can't always provide…
How to use colour in the cottage garden style
How to have colour in the cottage garden style town garden without it being too much work for one person to manage. Well I would…
Daffodils in a small garden – tips on how to grow them.
If you have a small garden like a town garden and want to grow daffodils, here are my tips on how best to do it,…