The garden in July
Kari-Astri Davies is relishing the sights and sounds in her garden, which provides a haven for reflection
THE BUMP-SHUTTLE WHIRRING sounds of haylage bales being made and wrapped go on into late evening, as the farmer works to outpace the anticipated thundery showers. In the morning, great green rolls stud the shorn fields next door.
The predicted downpour has bowed and split a once sturdy mound of Persicaria amplexicaulis, while the heavy heads of leucanthemum ‘Fiona Coghill’ lie prone. Both they and other plants will need cutting back, creating gaps in the borders. Nevertheless, the refreshing rain has been welcome.
Taking it slowly
Like many people lucky enough to have a garden, over the last few months, I have spent more time both in it and working in it. In the solitude and quietness, birdsong and the humming of insects have been more intense.
There has been no nagging voice in the back of my head, telling me: “Quick; I must get this done now”. Days have rolled out at a slower pace. Working to a more gentle rhythm, I have turned the soil, hoed, sowed and planted; uttering occasional apologies to worms of many sizes and hues for disturbing their daily routines.
The veg patch and I have kept pace this year. Potatoes went in, in a timely fashion, and the first carrots and beetroots were sown by mid March. Pink currants and blackcurrants were pruned, weeded and mulched. Runner and French beans clamber up a new rustic metal and bamboo cane frame, and sweet peas smother another. This is much more aesthetically pleasing than my previous bodged cane and string constructions.
The garden had been telling me it needed a little soil improving, so I have listened, and three tons of various mulches have been distributed across beds and borders to nourish the soil.
I have sat and looked; made small and larger interventions. I have completed tidying and other jobs I had not managed to get around to from last year; maybe longer. I am by no means on top of everything, but being in the garden has been a calming, more contemplative experience.
Hopes for rosemary
Rosemary has recently been reclassified as a salvia: Salvia rosmarinus, but I have decided to stick with the old name for the time being.
Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Gorizia’, a very tall-growing cultivar, was starting to fail. Spring winds buffeting the old upright growth speeded up its demise. Another rosemary, ‘Green Ginger’, rapidly outgrew its pot and now looks yellowed and unwell.
I tried taking cuttings last year, but all failed. I realised that I may have been making the cuttings too long. This time, I have taken cuttings of 1¼-1½in (3-4cm) long from soft growth, cut just under a leaf node, then inserted them
“Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o’er the crystal streamlet plays” Robert Burns, ‘The Birks of Aberfeldy’
into well-gritted compost. I am hoping to have a more successful outcome this time.
Light and shade
On a hot July day, shade is my friend. I retreat under a leafy canopy to admire from a cool distance the sun-drenched borders and shifting drifts of butterflies. Gardens rarely look their best on a dull day: less defined, less vibrant.
Without sun, the play of dappling shadows under trees is silenced. This winter, I had an idea to plant Cornus alternifolia ‘Argentea’ in the copse to create gentle veils of tiered, silvered dancing leaves; enticing one onwards in summer down the shaded path. It remains an interesting idea. Said to be a slow-growing tree, a fairly mature and therefore expensive specimen is required to outrun the cow parsley and spring narcissus.
I have interplanted Hedera helix ‘Elfenbein’ among the wild green ivy scrambling across the ground and over old logs. It has very subtle white-tipped variegation, which almost mimics the play of light on leaves.
The muddy brook bounding the garden flows more strongly since it was ditched in the spring. Glimpsed through the meadowsweet and wild angelica lining the banks, it ripples, skips and glints in the sunlight; gentle gurgles marking the water’s passage.
“A filbert-hedge with wild-briar overt wined, And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind Upon their summer thrones”
John Keats, ‘I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill’
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