July in the Garden

July is pretty spectacular in the garden this year. I've been really pleased with the new planting in the front garden where we had a big overgrown tree chopped down earlier in the year. We deliberately tried to choose plants that would come at their best during June and July and be a magnet for the butterflies and bees. We picked various colours of blue, lilacs, purples with a few pink and white plant varieties too. 

The weather conditions during the last year have been good for breeding butterflies and we seem to have literally created our very own butterfly garden, so I've been delighted. Planting out new plants and just seeing how they turn out and what unfolds can be so rewarding! 

Varying heights of purple wallflowers and different varieties of lavender. 

Butterfly enjoying the blue catmint. All the blue and purple plants have been covered in butterflies. Every time we come out of the house and walk past this area we are treated to dozens of butterflies fluttering up from the plants. It has been fascinating, you find yourself stopping and staring, it's not so good if you are in a rush! 

Enjoying some verbena, which is now out in full. 

Delphiniums are out at the back of the borders. 

Wallflowers, lobelia and geraniums make a good combination by the back patio. 

The water lilies are just beginning to flower now, the pond is full of their leaves and blooms. 

Bright pink carnations make a great colour combination with the bronze leaves and pink flowers of the heuchera. 

Sidalcea malviflora flowering in the back border. 

The tomatoe baskets are full of fruit and are ripening nice and early with all the hot sunshine we've been having. 

There are still plenty of foxgloves blooming and popping up in all different places. I love the colour combinations of this one. 

I've made a few pots full of wildflowers planted from seed and they are looking great at the moment, full of vibrant colours. Cornflowers are one of my favourites, I love this shade of blue. 

We have quite a few hebe plants flowering in pinks, blues and purples, another good one for the butterflies! 

There are lots of these little froglets around. We have to look out for them jumping into the house. The pond is full of frogs, when we have the heavy showers we've had recently they all seem to come out of the pond and jump across the garden. It's a mass exodus of frogs and quite entertaining and funny to watch! 

Plants for late May

So much has come into bloom during May I can't keep up with it! Here are a few more plants that are blossoming and will probably last into summer.

Climbing hydrangea

This climber is by our front door and gives a beautiful display through summer. I love its big, broad blooms coupled with delicate sprouting smaller flowers. It still looks attractive when the heads fade back giving subtle autumn colour. The flower heads can also be picked and dried for flower displays. 

Foxgloves. I know you find foxgloves in the wild, but I love the 'cottagey' look they give to the garden and how they pop up in different places in the borders each year. You never know where you will find them next. We let them just get on with it and seed themselves where they fancy. It always guarantees a surprise for next year! 

 

Catmint. One of my favourites for good ground cover - saves a lot of weeding and gives a lovely blue, whispy summer's day look to the garden.

Valerian. With its fierce bright flowers this plant grows easily, even in paving cracks. We have it in a wild area amongst some blackberry bushes in a dry raised bed in the wall of the front garden and it has seeded itself amongst the plants in a shady, dry bed under conifer trees. It is a common wild plant, but there's always room for a wild plant or two in our garden if they can put on a colourful and vibrant display! 

This border is in a small, shady and dry patch underneath the conifer hedge and between the parking space on the front garden. It is looking lovely and probably at its best at the moment. It is a mix of low growing golden conifer shrubs, blue aquilegas, californian lilacs, blue cornflowers and in the foreground valerian. 

Just when the yellow marigolds have finished blooming by the pond, the golden irises have appeared. I love irises. 

The poppies are back again too in shades of scarlet red and peachy pink. They never disappoint and never fail to give a fabulous display. They need to be staked though or they will be squashed down with the rain. Thank goodness we managed to do that just in time with the weather we have had this week! 

Dianthus. This small little alpine flower grows easily anywhere around the garden. Its name means 'divine flower'. It does well in pots, troughs, raised beds or any little corner of a rock garden. 

First signs of the pink geraniums. These are another plant that are great for ground cover. They can be split and planted in pots and borders around the garden each season. They will be full of flower in June and continue flowering well into autumn if you dead head them now and again. 

In the foreground is a small weeping tree called a cotoneaster.  It starts to bloom with small white flowers at the end of May and looks at its best in June. After the flowers have finished they form small bright red berries, which give off another superb display in autumn and during winter. 

More of those foxgloves peeping out! 

French lavender, this one was a gift from a friend, another favourite plant of mine. It flowers before the other lavenders we have in the garden and heralds a taster of what is to come. It is a favourite with the bees too! 

A closer look at the delicate weeping cotoneaster flower.

Heuchera. I love these plants with their dark copper evergreen leaves and their panicles reaching for the sun, filled with starry delicate flowers. 

May has been a busy month in the garden. I enjoy May, whatever the weather really, as it feels like the start of summer. If we happen to get good weather there is that feeling of a long everlasting summer ahead; if it's bad, then you just think, 'oh well, there is still all summer yet for some better weather.' 

In the meantime the garden is still growing frantically whatever the weather is doing, getting it ready for you to enjoy the summer whatever!