My garden didn’t do as well as it normally does this year. It’s definitely been better in previous years, but we started out with drought this spring and ended up with so much water by the middle of summer that many of the vegetables just rotted away. I use the term ‘summer’ very loosely. We hardly saw the sun for weeks here in England, and it was downright cold a lot of the time.
I have two raised beds outside my kitchen door. Herbs grow there year round, and this summer I planted French beans, peas, summer squash and tomatoes. The beans and peas rotted before they could bloom (I literally had one bean!), but the summer squash did quite well. Believe it or not the tomatoes are only just now starting to ripen!
Although my vegetables really suffered, my flowers did okay. Things are settling down a bit now, but the roses are still blooming, and things are looking great thanks to my friend Shirley of Works For You professional organisers. She is an amazing gardener, and has done loads of weeding as well as putting down bark chips for me. Bark chips are a great way to help slow down the weeds, and make a garden look really tidy.
On with the tour! If you walk past the raised beds and look back round you will see the screen hiding the raised beds from the rest of the garden. It is supposed to be covered with clematis and sweet peas. This year ‘covered’ would definitely be an overstatement!
My garden is L-shaped so if you turn your back to the screen you will see this view..
(my house is to the left, out of shot) and then as you walk round you see the main part of the garden.
It wraps round the back of the house – you can just see a tiny bit of the house on the left of the photograph. I love the brick wall on the far side. Sadly the builders would not wall the whole garden and we had to have wooden fences on the other sides.
Although I really do wish we had more going on in terms of flowers, I’m pleased with how my garden looks this year. I’m really looking forward to trying again next year though, especially with the vegetables! My bulbs will soon be arriving – I order them at The Chelsea Flower Show every year and they arrive in October for planting. I also need to keep my eyes open for some plants that will give a bit more winter colour in the garden. I just hope we don’t get too much snow!
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