Readers’ gardens
A retired NHS consultant from East Lothian, learning that time, patience, wildlife and dirty hands make gardening an absolute joy.
I ’ve been watering everything at least once a day, and there’s some leggy growth on many plants but the ground is so hard I can’t get any new support canes in!
The old roses – ‘Bobbie James’, ‘William Lobb’ and Rosa mundi – have been gorgeous and free from greenfly this year, but their single-flowering show will soon be over. A new deep red patio rose is covered with blooms, adding low colour beside a blousy red geranium outside the back door. Also looking very happy are two blue agapanthus, which survived the harsh winter sheltering in pots outdoors. Last summer they produced only two flower spires, but this year there are 11. The delphinium spires have again been damaged by swirling winds. I’ve moved them around the garden looking for more shelter, so I think this is the best I can hope for. Achillea of various colours were upright and self-supporting until a week or so ago, but are leaning now under their own extra growth. They seem quite happy to have been divided last autumn. I’ve lost a couple of Shasta daisies I put in last year for brightness and I don’t know why. In contrast, the vivid orange alstroemeria are taking over in one area, so I’ll need to lift some out. Self-seeding Alchemilla mollis is great value but looks a bit tired after the first flush of flowers. It’ll flower again after some welltimed pruning. A later-flowering blue clematis is beginning to come out over the back gate. I trained it across the arch this year, rather than letting it go up, where the flowers disappeared among the climbing rose tresses.