These two hardy fuschias came with the original front garden. The darker one in F4 suffers slightly in dry weather, but seems to recover well. The lighter one flowers even more spectacularly a little later, but I’m going to have to reduce it a bit before it takes over.

This is the best of the three hydrangeas that came with the original garden. It was pruned into a tight, small ball, and probably hadn’t flowered for years until I let it grow.

The bay tree came with the original garden. It’s got two equal, close stems, and was clipped into a tight ball. Clipping like this cuts the large leaves, and the whole plant has to be gone over again with secateurs to remove the cut leaves. Also the growth gets very tight and constrained, with thick knots just inside the cut surface. I would like to maintain the overall size and shape, but loosen the whole plant up.

3 Aug 17

Tinkering through the summer seems to be working quite well, as the plant is growing strongly.

The persicaria in B2 softens the edge of the bed nicely, but there is too much of it, and it’s rather dull in winter when the foliage dies down. It certainly needs to be reduced, and new plants planted behind it. This variety is ‘Donald Lowndes’, has an AGM, and is said to be partially evergreen. We’ll see what happens this coming winter.

Although only planted one year ago this rose is already doing very well. Lovely colour and scent. At this size it is easy to deadhead, but eventually it should cover the E side of the house.

Thalictrum aquilegifolium planted in two beds in the back garden in May 2016. Last year it did well. This year it’s enormous, and was obscuring plants behind it in B2, so at the end of May I cut about half the stems to the ground. This seems to have worked, and it’s now (15th June) flowering nicely. It’s quite exposed to the wind, particularly in B2, but bamboo cane supports work well.

The plants are now about 8′ tall. The bamboo canes reach about 5′ above the ground.

The valerian from the original garden flops nicely over the gravel where the car is left near the bay tree. It seeds freely in the gravel, but the seedlings look quite nice and can be pulled up easily. There are quite a few valerian seedlings under the car. They must grow while I’m away, but of course, I very rarely see them. There’s a lot more scope for planting in the gravel, particularly in the front garden.

This spring I found some bulbs sprouting in small pots in a B&Q garden centre. The Tête-à-tête miniature narcissi were good, the Iris reticulata less so. I’ll continue to plant most of my bulbs dry in late autumn or early winter, but the sprouting pots are useful gap fillers.

Conventional planting:

Sprouting pots:

30 Mch 18

These tête-à-tête are superb. Better than those I planted traditionally. The iris reticulata have all disappeared, however.

Another relic from the London garden. Just keeps going