A border of summer annuals - July

My new annual flower bed, with cosmos, stocks, cornflowers and my first zinnia
of the season

You know what they say, one person's loss is another's gain.  In this case it is four bushes lost, a summer annuals border gain.  I have posted before about how we ripped out the front hedge consisting of four raggedy bushes and were left with a lovely big border just ripe for the planting.  I put in three wigwams of beans and a couple of lines of dwarf but this still left me with plenty of room for other things.  And if that wasn't enough the mother then decided to cut into the grass and expand the border to make something a little more pleasing on the eye.

One of my beautiful marbled antirrhinums, nestled in next to my runner beans 

If you are a long-time reader of my blog, you would be aware that since January I have in effect been running an annuals breeding programme.  On cold cold Saturdays I would be huddled in my garage, pushing seed after seed into compost, dreaming of a beautiful summer display.  As this started pre front border emptying I figured I would just find holes for all these annuals here and there amongst the established plants.  That plan would not have worked.  I probably have grown around sixty plants of various varieties, my supply of nooks and crannies is not that endless.  They would have been tucked away and hidden.

It really has the feeling of a proper cottage garden, with a mixture of vegetables and
proper old fashioned cottage garden flowers.  Here is glorious bright red runner
bean flowers with white stocks

But not now.  Now they have taken centre stage in my garden, in full view of the road and all my neighbours, and I think it looks rather good.  Plants I managed to get in fairly early are happily flowering away.  At the other end my beans are also in flower surrounded by more annuals and then I have just put in my last plants in between.  There are also around fifty gladiolus bulbs in this border, when it is all out it should really be a joy to behold.  The first two spikes of gladiolus have just shot up so I am expecting flowers very shortly.

My border is full of these lovely dark burgundy cornflowers

Why did I grow all my annuals in pots rather than just chucking the seed in where they are to grow? Not in my soil they don't!  Nothing but aquilegia grows from seed in my heavy clay soil.  The task is too hard.  They do much better if they can be allowed to get established and then I leave them to the mercy of the clay.  I have given each plant a little sand around them to help improve drainage, and they seem to like it enough.  The great thing about this bit of soil is that because it had large bushes in it with extensive root systems, the soil is not too compacted and digging a few inches down is comparatively easy.

I am thrilled with this zinnia, its just the most beautiful colour.  I have several varieties
so there should be a good mix

Among my varieties are cosmos, zinnias, cornflowers, antirrinum, scabious and stocks.  I did not deliberately co-ordinate the colours but they do actually all compliment each other.  I will be doing individual posts on each variety, saying what I think of it and close-up pictures, that kind of thing, but I wanted to show the border as a whole as it is at the moment.  It is pretty today, but I hope it will change and morph across the next month and look different but equally pretty in a months time.  I will share how it has changed over the next month at the end of August.

Excessive gladiolus bulb planting - a whole lot of digging

A stunning example of why I love these flowers, nobody can deny that these
are beautiful

I love gladiolus despite their association with a certain Australian dame and being considered a little naff.  I think they are big, blousy and beautiful.  So last year at Hampton Court I bought 40 bulbs.  Or corms, whichever you prefer. Quite a few you might be thinking.  Not quite a few, far too many by half!  Considering my clay soil is like granite and digging trenches for all those bulbs is equivalent to a solid three weeks pumping iron in the gym, that decision is insanity, and one I have questioned numerous times while being halfway through digging a big hole, up to my elbows in dirt.

Seven bags of future delights, or a hell of a lot of work wrapped in paper.  Why do I do it to myself?! They will be worth it though, I hope.  This is how they were delivered, in paper bags contained in a cardboard box

It was a little doubtful I would even get the opportunity to flex my increasing biceps and dig for floral glory because my receipt led me astray.  Buying something and then not receiving it until ten months later is bizarre at the best of times, but my receipt - which I can tell you, trying to keep hold of in a known location for all that time was not easy- told me they would be turning up two months before they did.

Six bulbs, or corms lying in the bed of sand at the bottom of a trench I sweated over for hours, ready to be covered up.  This is back when I had more sand and was more frivolous with it.  Later on each bulb got its own little mound and that was it

Anyway eventually my box of gruelling work did finally arrive, and horrors, Pheasant Acre Plants had sent free bulbs.  Im not usually one to sniff in the face of free stuff, but more bulbs equals more digging, and I had signed up to more than enough on my own as it is.  But not one to waste things, I will plant them as well.

Later on I figured out that it is easier to widen a deep hole than dig a whole fresh one, so I started planting in double rows

While it is tempting to just go to town, dig up half the garden all at once and get the whole lot in and be done and dusted with it, planting in succession means you get staggered flowering during the summer, which is more ideal.  This means I have dreaded many Saturday mornings rather than just the one.

I am putting them into the newly empty front bed, which is good because it means there aren't many obstacles like large roots in the way, but it is bad because I am going to have to attempt to dig them all back up again before the winter.  I see these bulbs as an investment rather than a one year kind of deal, and they wont be able to stay where they are indefinitely.

The way I go about burying my gladiolus bulbs is to be confused, im not sure what the best method is any more.  Last year I put them at the bottom of a big trench on a layer of manure.  This year I put them on sand to aid drainage, although thinking back now im wondering if they were still meant to get a bit of manure? Oh well, most of them definitely haven't got it and are just going to have to cope.  As to the deepness of the trench? As deep as I can dig before I collapse into one end, meekly calling for a reviving cup of tea from anyone in earshot.  There is a layer of clay that once hit requires a fork to loosen and then a trowel to dig out, and there is only so long anyone can be bothered with that.
After digging several of these trenches the father enquired if I was training for a new career as a gravedigger.  I think not, too much hard work.

I go for trenches rather than holes because im not a mole.  Chiselling down six inches forty times with a trowel?  No thanks.  Great big spade and a long trench that you can throw ten bulbs in is a more sensible approach in my opinion.  Nobody has time to be faffing around with a little trowel.  Go in gung-ho with plenty of manoeurve room.

Gladioli Alba, a stunning white variety with quite small star shaped flowers that really sing in the light of dusk.  They are doing really well and appear to be multiplying now

I put the bulbs on little mounds of sand with little coverings of sand to help drainage, probably less than they would like, but my sand stocks are running out and its a pain to replace. You have to wait for the bulbs to have nodules.  I had no clue what they were but small little nobbly bits were present on the bulbs round the root, so in they were bunged.

The backs of the flowers are flushed with green and just a hint of red, so simple
and yet so perfect

I have some really nice varieties such as chit chat - candy pink, indian summer - dusky pink, green star - green, black star - dark red, magma- red, aftershock - magenta pink, and callianthis murielae - night scented. I have but leaves at the second so will leave descriptions to pictures when we have some actual bloomage.  For now here are some pictures of alba, a glorious little white variety that the mother picked up at Chelsea a few years ago and is always a delight.  The bulbs stay in the ground so they flower very early, they have filled my gladiolus void until the main batch comes through.

Broad bean harvest - tiddly beans

Some of my first batch of broad beans, big juicy pods, disappointing insides

Look at my haul of lovely big juicy broad bean pods.  I am thrilled with their size and quantity.  I have bean pod growing completely figured out, I can grow exceptional bean pods.  I just need to figure out how to grow the beans themselves.  Unfortunately the beans within were on the whole a little underwhelming in size, if there were any snuggled in the furry lining at all.  Maybe I picked them a bit quick or didn't give them enough water.  But although few and far between, the beans I did get were tasty, no complaints there, but just not enough.

I have no complaints on the look of these beans, they are picture perfect.  As long as there are no expectations of a big meal afterwards

Although I grew more plants last year, I think I actually picked less beans because I was unaware of the bean's never ending desire for water and so the beans formed but never really got anywhere.  This was disappointing.  This year far more have come to fruition, if only underwhelmingly so, but the main thing I would change is to sow more plants.  I went for successive batches to try and stretch out the season but it meant that not enough were ready at the one time.  It would have been nice to have enough for more than just one meal, gathered over quite a while. Yes just the one, although it was for four people.  And a few that we just ate like an aperitif.  Hopefully if I do dig up some of the lawn next year this will be possible.  I only had about 12-15 plants in each of my batches, with at least one taken out by the father's excessively wild strimming, the man is wild with that thing.

One of the real changes I made to my growing technique this year, other than giving them a huge can-full of water every day, was to nip out the top of each plant.  I did this when the first bean had set at the bottom.  This is supposed to help a restricted amount of beans reach a decent size, rather than a lot be small. Or non-existent.  I think this worked up to a certain level, but like I said, beans were small and far from plentiful.  It is also meant to cut down on black fly due to the fact that they sort of begin out in the growing tip and spread to the rest of the plant.  I don't know why this is the case but it definitely is, I kept checking and sure enough after a while there the little devils were.  The technique kept them mainly at bay, except for one plant in my second crop that became infested overnight and despite picking a fair few off by hand, the plant was lost to their little clutches.

I made a little rice and bean salad with my first crop, there are obviously some sugar snap peas in there as well 

I was hanging on and giving daily drenches with the hosepipe in the hope I could encourage the last few beans to greatness, but this week I finally gave up.  Turns out it was a fruitless wait, most of the pods didn't even have beans forming inside.  The plants were being overtaken with rust and were looking shocking tatty, so I have pulled the whole lot out.  Its time to move on and get something else planted in there.

One hell of a mess.  A vegetable patch is always a strange kind of beauty
but this is well past visually appealing.  The whole lot just needed ripping
out

Considering the effort it takes to get out there and plant the seeds when its cold, manure the ground, dig it over, and continually water, Im not sure the results are really worth it.  Considering the vegetables you can grow, and the slightly more bountiful crops that can be achieved, I feel inclined not to bother with broad beans again. But I have already bought seeds for next year so for next season at least they will be back.

My second and vastly more disappointing of my two crops.  This is literally it.  Just one bean made it into a skin, not that you want them too because skins are tough.  Definitely next year I will just sow more plants at once.

Visiting Hampton Court flower show - show highlights

One of the many weird and wonderful sights at Hampton Court Flower show this year.  Really whoever put this together should be commended for authenticity in the planting, looks real to me  

My absolute favourite day of the year is Hampton Court flower show.  This occurred a few weeks ago, but I have been out of the country and therefore unable to share my thoughts and pictures until now.  This year was my second year on the trot, third in total at Hampton.  Specialty flowers, discounted seeds, nice displays, whats not to like?  Hot weather and slow meanderers, that's what.  Both times I have been recently it has been baking, which is obviously better than wet, but marquees are no places to be with hundreds of people all getting their sweat on.  At least this year I wasn't visibly swaying in the heat from tonsillitis, because that was torturous last year.

I get that gardening is generally the preserve of those more advanced in years, and they generally walk slower, but wow could these people really crawl.  Oh but they sure can get shovy when they want to look at the seeds your currently stationed in front of.  Quite tested my patience which eventually ran out when a man with a big fancy camera decided to do a full photo shoot of a couple of butterflies sat on some daisies I wanted to buy.  I let him take five or six shots from various angles, not in quick succession I might add, before I nabbed the daisy.  It didn't go down well.

So I thought I would share a few snaps of some of the interesting things I saw at Hampton, and then in another couple of posts I will do plants I would like to purchase, and ones I did.  It does not contain many of the show gardens as im not really into them, but there is still the odd delightful display here and there.  I also don't profess to have gone round the whole thing.  There comes a point when the only thing you want to see is the inside of the car to go home.

Who doesn't love a ten foot high big ball of alliums? Just excuse the random
green reindeer in the front

I love the way this nursery showcased their alliums, grouping them together to make super alliums.  They look so wonderfully tactile and I would have loved to whip out a set of steps and nipped up there for a feel.  Also very helpful if your looking for an allium stand from afar.  I wonder why they didn't use more varieties? But still, very cool.  Except the strange green wire reindeer; not cool. Totally don't get that bit.

One half of the old-and-new greenhouse, looking in from outside.  Could easily be the scene of some period drama, romance blossoming in the old lean-too, if only

This pond featured in one of the show gardens.  The inky blackness really shows off the yellow flowers in particular.  I thought it was bizarre that the water appears black because it is actually coloured red.  Not sure anybody would really want a red pond in their garden

One stand seemed to consist of a greenhouse which you could walk through, which was fun.  One half was all old and rundown with plants climbing through the windowless house and broken pots and things.  The other was a spic and span modern greenhouse, presumably showing how it could be restored?  Who knows, the meaning, as always, was completely lost on me.  Personally I would rather the rickety old side because its pretty and romantic, although not conducive for turning tomatoes red.

Meadow grasses combined with herbaceous borders to create... well frankly a little bit of a mess.  I still like it though, but it vaguely makes me want t get in their and weed, and I don't have a tidy garden.

Only two of the show gardens really grabbed my attention.  This one appealed because I like the concept of merging herbaceous borders with meadow grasses.  I can't say it completely works, its best in this photo, but from another angle its almost entirely herbaceous border with random bits of long grass poking through, which looks a tad odd.  I would like to incorporate more grass into my garden, so maybe there is something to learn here.

This is every girls dream, big lusty borders of beautiful flowers, any armful would make quite the boquet.  Id happily take this home.  As long as I could sneak in the odd tomato here and there

The other garden was in my opinion by far the best.  I can't remember which country this was based on, and to be honest I can't really see that it matters.  What matters is that it was really really pretty, which is not something you see in a show garden that often.  They all have hidden meaning and messages and try and be new and different.  Sometimes its refreshing when somebody just embraces girly flowers wholeheartedly.  It would be a nightmare to prune and deadhead, and would only look like this for five minutes before it all gets overgrown, but still its visually pleasing.

Very whimsical, except the front of that hut thing, lets not even talk about that, focus instead on the green

Actually having said there was only two, this one did make me smile.  More like a river at the bottom of the garden in the section you don't really bother with, rather than a garden, I enjoyed the reference to Winnie the Pooh on the bridge, as this is near where I live.

This for me is what Hampton is all about, the layered allium displays.  I love them.
I didn't manage to take as good pictures this year as I did last, but you get the idea

And finally to the strangest thing I saw at hampton.  There literally are no words.
We all know what this looks like, there is no need to go there, but i just don't get why?!!

And finally to alliums.  I wish they grew like this in the garden like a layer cake, but alas this must be constructed.  Alliums just work so well layered up like this, and for me its the enduring image of Hampton.  I just wish I had enough to make one myself!  

Building wigwams for runner and french beans

I think you will agree, these are three solidly looking wigwams.  I forgot to photograph the wigwams on construction,
so this is a few weeks later, the beans have made rapid progress.  This also demonstrates the closeness of the beans to the neighbours

When one turns the front garden into an impromptu vegetable bed, one also has to construct wigwams.  I have never constructed a wigwam before.  Theoretically I believe the correct practise is to build your wigwam and then plant the beans around, but that would require the canes to be in ones possession when one plants the beans, which I did not have.  This is the problem with trying something new in the garden, it always results in having to invest in more equipment. I have sticks for broad beans, sticks for peas, sticks for sweat peas, but nothing longer.  And I needed a bit of length here.  So off to the garden centre I went, mother in tow.

Unfortunately I hit the garden centre after the locusts had already been through, buying every cane below eight foot and above five. After deciding that eight foot sticks would not fit into my car without some serious alteration on their part, however I attempted to wedge them in, we had to leave for another.  Typically this did not have cane supply problems, with every size imaginable covered.
We settled on seven foot canes as the appropriate length, but even these had to be wedged into the glove compartment on the passenger side, pass right under the mother's ear to be wedged right in the back of the boot. Getting them home was just stage one.  Now I had to set too and lasso them together.  I did not think this would be a difficult task.  I tried my best, but apparently wigwam making is harder than it looks, or at least it is if your making them to the mother's standards.

Being the daughter of the vegetable growing god that was my grandfather, I asked her to take a supervisory role.  Accordingly she vanished and I found her drinking tea and snacking on biscuits indoors, by which point I had one of my wigwams in place and was just going to lasso a whole load of twine around the top.  Despite opting out earlier, she declared I had done it all wrong and my wigwam would not withstand gale force winds.  Why she is expecting such gusts I don't know, we don't live in a terribly windy place.  So I told her if she thought it could be done better, feel free.  So the mother had to take to the soil and start making some reef knots.

I think the mother thinks the bamboo canes are the next Houdini.  Nobody is getting free
from this lassoing

She didn't like this for two reasons.  One, she was in her good skirt.  Two, she had until now believed she could act like a front garden full of beans had been thrust upon her rather than she was taking an active role.  No more.  Also her tea went cold, but that's by the by.  Anyway shes much taller than I and therefore far more suited to wigwam making.  She did a fine job, although complained incessantly.  It will probably take several hours to prize them apart at the end of the season the level of lasso she went into.

She says it suddenly looks like we have instantaneous beans because as they had been in a few weeks they had been putting on a bit of length, albeit along the ground.  While she was up-top in construction, I was coiling the beans up the poles.  I think it looks really pretty, very cottagey garden.  The parents were concerned it would be very vegetable patch, but beans have flowers and a whimsical air.  Not like im out there growing cabbages, not yet anyway.  It must look good because my neighbour told the mother while I was on holiday how much she liked the new front border, saying there was always something new to see.  I just love being proven right.

On the plus side if anybody had a mind to knick the canes, they would end up
giving up.  I dread trying to get them apart.  On a brighter note I love a good bean stalk coil
up a pole, its just so pleasing

So hopefully the wigwams will withstand the British hurricane season, having returned from holiday I can confirm they are all still very much in situ, and hopefully I will get a fine crop.  I am however concerned that passers by may feel inclined to pinch a bean or two on their way past.  I may have to erect signage and tell that neighbour to stop eyeing up my beans.   

Beans in the front garden - french, runner and dwarf

I am back.  The reasoning for a three week absence is I escaped to Cyprus for a ten day break from the stresses of being a journalist and my everyday life.  If I was a more organised person I would have written posts in advance and had them go up automatically while I was away, but I am not that person.  But now I am back, brown as a berry and refreshed and talking about beans.

The mother does not approve of me turning the front garden into a vegetable patch.  Luckily I don't  give two hoots what she thinks so have done so anyway.  You see, the reason I don't grow more vegetables than I already do is a question of space.  I have wedged in a small vegetable bed at the bottom of my back garden by removing shrubs, but there is only space for a small crop of broad beans, sugar snap and peas.  No room at all for more exotic legumes such as french beans or a cheeky line of dwarf.

In my minds eye when I was writing this I had taken lots of lovely pictures.  It turns out
I only took two, and neither are terribly visually interesting.  I dug three enormous holes
to put manure in, the effort that had to be put in does not come across.

I am a big believer in grabbing opportunity by both hands, and if that opportunity is a border of old shrubs, pulling until removed.  The shrubs did need to go.  Looking like a row of unkempt teeth, what had been a delightfully ordered set of various bushes had grown and morphed into quite frankly what can only be described as a monstrosity.  Several years I have tried to convince the parents to let the bushes go, and only when the tall end one started to die and one in the middle sagged onto the lawn did they finally relent.

Being ever keen to save things the mother chopped down the euonymus and berberis in the hope they would re-sprout.  Then they called in a professional gardener to pull out the stumps of the other two.  Only said professional gardener got a little carried away and pulled out the whole lot.  I practically died of amusement when I came home to find a barren front border devoid of any plant-life.  This quickly moved to salivating over what could be put there instead.

Luckily the mother saw this mishap as an opportunity rather than a disaster, an opportunity to start afresh. Admittedly fresh with shrubs was her thought but I had other ideas.  Beans.  To be fair, now is not the time to be planting new shrubs and she has no idea what she wants to put in there so in the mean time I have whipped in several circles of beans.

I had to go shop bought rather than home-grown as I was not expecting this soil windfall and so hadn't prepared.  Instead I bought two packs of the french bean variety Blue Lake.  The garden centre actually had a very limited choice, I was expecting beans of every shape and colour, but no, so I couldn't mix it up a bit.  On another trip to a different one I did stumble across some dwarf beans which are handy because they are vertically challenged members of the bean world and don't require staking.

The mother's runners.  She had a really healthy luscious crop that have grown like weeds since going in.  She knows how to go for numbers, think we will have runners galore

The mother has benefitted as well mind you.  She always likes to grow some runner beans.  Last year she planted them in a small space at the front of a boarder in the back garden and they ended up growing through the apple tree which didn't make picking easy.  Pretty though.  With all this new space she was able to plant out her runners in a nice roomy circle ready for a wigwam.  Picking should be a dream.  It hasn't been without its work though because the entire thing has had to be dug over to remove small roots and copious amounts of horse poo has been shoveled in, although I read afterwards that beans don't like freshly manured grounds, but tough, they've got it now.

So currently there are three circles of climbing beans and three small lines of dwarf beans in the front garden.  I plan to add to this with some broccoli in the near future.  The mother keeps talking about putting bushes back in. but its not happening.  Now I have my hands on this earth im not letting go.  The only problem is its a little exposed to my neighbours and I can not garden in my night frock out there as is my want sometimes.  Better than nothing though.

Bell and chilli peppers - Madras, celica, apache, topeppo rosso, minimix

One of my little wrinkly peppers from last year, misshapen but perfectly
tasty, I just didn't eat many 

Lets talk peppers.  Actually no lets talk heat.  We British are mocked incessently for talking about the weather.  This is because we talk incessantly about the weather.  And today, today it is hot.  30+ degree kind of hot. Way too hot for me. Im off to Hampton Court flower show on Friday, I have serious concerns all the flowers will have wilted by the time I get there!

Amongst those who I hope are enjoying basking in these glorious rays are my peppers.  Yes, my vegetable buying did not stop at just tomatoes.

I had two pepper plants last year, both shop bought as my efforts to grow from seed fell flat.  And they produced peppers, which is obviously good.  However these peppers never turned red and they were funny little gnarled things so I often left them to shrivel in the bottom of the fridge, which is bad.  This year I am determined to actively use my crop, as there should be a considerable one.  A dislike for the produce has not stopped me investing in a solid stock.

I didn't have a bad crop, but these little green peppers never went red, which is annoying

The first pepper that caught my attention was Madras.  I have totally been sucked in by the colour.  This bell pepper purports to be very very dark purple, which is cool.  However, like all normal peppers it should turn red as it ripens.  Only none of mine did last year so actually I might get to eat black peppers.  I don't believe there is anything else that exciting about this, there is only so exciting a pepper can be after all.

The second variety I picked out is sweet pepper Celica.  Looking it up on the internet I have read that it is "a vast improvement for plant and fruit quality compared to the popular Bell Boy," which is great, because Bell boy is one of the varieties that I neglected to properly use last year.

The last plant I purchased is seriously different for me.  I bought a chilli pepper, an apache.  I have never grown one before.  Its a slightly unusual purchase because for one, I don't really like chilli peppers, and two I have no idea what I am going to do with them when I have got some.  But I thought it would be fun, and I have so many pots to water now one more is hardly gong to make much of a difference.

I have more peppers, but these I grew myself.  I think the fact that I bought peppers hints at the level of faith I had in my ability to keep pepper seedlings from the slugs.  Turns out the garage is a fairly slug-less place, although I did find cheeky beggar in there which was swiftly removed.

My little seed grown peppers, they are only small at the moment but I have high hopes for these little plants 

I have two varieties, topeppo rosso, which is one of those that has lovely squished fruits that look very Italian.  I have noticed that the packet says "thick fleshed" which im not sure if is good or not.  I have two of these.  I have four sweet minimix, which are thumb-sized, tiny, red yellow and orange peppers.  Hopefully both of these will be a worthwhile addition to the crop because I have yet to pot these up.

I will keep you all posted with the pepper progress.  I only did one post on peppers last year, and for months it was my best read post, so apparently people can't get enough of peppers, and who am I not to oblige.