Watering’s the order of the day
A retired NHS consultant from East Lothian, learning that time, patience, wildlife and dirty hands make gardening an absolute joy.
We’re set for a good spell of warm and sunny weather, so regular watering is needed. I’ve already emptied a large rainwater collector, which is usually well-filled.
Storm Hector did some damage to the taller plants, even though with a couple of days warning, I’d staked and tied up as much as I could. The top two feet of an energetic ‘Bobbie James’ climbing rose were broken off, but there are plenty of buds on lower, undamaged branches.
The aquilegia are just past their peak, but the display of dusky pink, purple and deepest burgundy have been very attractive. I’m going to give some seed heads and seedlings to a keen gardening friend later in the year.
A blue, early-flowering clematis is bearing the greatest number of flowers I’ve ever seen on it and they look good behind a white potentilla. Maybe I’m beginning to get the cutting back times right!
Last year, I saved a desiccated scrap of heuchera from a planter in the south-facing front garden and it’s now thriving in a semi-shaded pot which gets my attention more often. Looking lovely in the front is what must be a decades-old climbing rose, probably from well before the time we moved here, that gets no attention at all other than a radical cutting back every now and again. With complex pink-red blooms, it really gives far more, especially this year, than it asks in return. There are two old roses in the back garden, a ‘William Lobb’ and Rosa mundi, both of which have marvellous scent. I just wish they lasted longer. My strategy of planting garlic near them last autumn, in the hope this companion planting would keep greenfly away, seems to be working so fa. Honeysuckle is again growing through the Berberis thunbergii and this spring’s newly planted knautia is in front, providing nice contrasts of colour and structure. The puffy lilac heads of thalictrum are just about over now, but I leave them in place for months.