Typically, we think of July as Summertime in Britain. Hampton Court Flower Show, Wimbledon and The Proms all feature this month and are markers of a British Summer. Then picture the quintessentially British Summer Garden and I bet you see beds of jumbled up Cottage Garden favourites, jostling with each other for space and competing with their colour!
Actually, July in the garden can be somewhat different! It’s a bit of a green month; sometimes providing a bit of a lull between the fresh greens and colours of Spring and the more intense colours that come with those plants flowering in late Summer. So, if you’re feeling a bit jaded in this heat and your garden is too here are some ideas for planting to pick you up in this July gap!
Lavender – the colour seems more intense than usual this month and I wonder if the dry weather is helping to lock in the colour and scent! It typically likes dry conditions, not liking heavy clay soils and the potential for soggy roots! Shear off the flowers after they have flowered and then shear again in the Spring to keep the bushes compact as they are prone to getting leggy and woody.
Hibiscus – the flowers on Hibiscus look so tropical but love the conditions in Britain. It’s just getting going in July and will last into the Autumn. Prefers a well-drained soil too and a hard prune in Spring.
Roses – Is it just me or have they been spectacular this year? Whatever your favourite colour or scent you will find a Rose for you. Just keep deadheading or picking them and they will flower for you all Summer long, if not year long! Prune them over the Winter, removing anything that is dead, damaged or diseased and a 3rd of stems and they will thrive and flower for you.
Allium Sphaerocephalon – is the later flowering Allium and was all over the Flower Shows this year. It’s a dark purple and tear dropped shaped and looks great planted through a border. Remember to plant in groups of odd numbers for bigger visual impact but a great plant that even when the flowers have faded will leave a striking seedhead for you to enjoy for the rest of the year.
Yarrow (Achillea) can be spotted at this time if year with it’s flat topped umbels and feathery light green foliage. It comes in a variety of colours, prefers well-drained soils but again gives you striking seedheads when the flowers have faded. All you need to do is cut them down when they look too scruffy and wait for the flowers again next year.
The Butterfly Bush (Buddleia) is tough as old boots! But produces the most beautiful flowers and (as its name suggests) the bees and the butterflies love it! Cut it down every Spring so it doesn’t get out of hand and it will reward with you flowers and scent!
Just a few ideas to bring some colour to July. Let me know what your favourites are.
A Hoedown is what I called my Garden Consultation Service, purely because ‘Garden Consultation’ sounds so boring!
Someone called it Garden Therapy as they were feeling so stressed and overwhelmed by their garden and not enjoying it all! Others have found it really helpful at different times:
perhaps you’ve recently moved in and are overwhelmed by the garden you’ve inherited
you’re about to put your house on the market and want it to make a good impression
you’ve just built an extension and can now see your garden more
or perhaps you’ve spent the last 18 months using it more and you have a niggly feeling it could be working better for all the family!
This last few years have changed everything. With the onset of Covid and the various lockdowns we’ve found ourselves in since March 2020, being outdoors and in our gardens has made us re-think and re-prioritise all sorts of things as our gardens have become safe havens for all the family. Working throughout lockdown has meant I’ve had to be creative so I now have 2 offerings if you’re looking for some input into your garden:
Face to Face Hoedown
In your garden WITH a cuppa for an hour!
In your garden with payment upfront by BACS
Summary report sent afterwards so you don’t have to take any notes – including any sketch ideas and links to inspiration, suppliers, contractors, or plants
COST: £125 within a 5-mile radius of Redhill (I’m more than happy to travel further afield but will need to factor in travel time and costs)
Virtual Hoedown
Phone conversation to confirm priority areas (I’d suggest that design, layout, planting ideas work best this way)
Photos and video sent of the space before our meeting with guidance from me of best angles etc
Payment upfront by BACS
1-hour virtual meeting held at an agreed time from your home WITH a cuppa for an hour over Zoom
Summary report sent afterwards so you don’t have to take any notes – including any sketch ideas and links to inspiration, suppliers, contractors, or plants
Here’s what Claire had to say following our Hoedown:
“I spent a lovely hour in my back garden with Renée having a Hoedown. She is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable. I feel very inspired now and, most importantly, confident that I can change my garden to suit my family. Renée listened to what I hoped to achieve and asked all the right questions. I can’t wait to get started and thanks to Renée’s follow-up email with links and reminders of what we talked about it didn’t matter that I forgot most of the plant names we talked about! Thank you.”
Renee’s head and shoulders
What would you want us to spend our hour discussing? Let me know in the comments below!
I have a very laid back tendency towards my garden – if things don’t do well well ‘it was not meant to be’ and I generally have quite a hands off approach believing that plants need to survive for themselves rather than be molly-coddled. But the one thing that drives me bonkers is finding new plants, or baby plants, or seedlings that I’ve sown eaten by slugs!! They love fresh new growth, and can decimate a plant over night!
I once read that of someone who had carried out an experiment on Snails in her garden! Apologies for not remembering who. She collected a number of snails in her garden and then painted nail varnish on their shells. She then took the snails away from her garden and distributed them in various places, at various distances. And guess what? they only made their way back home!
There are various ways to combat slugs and starting now, today on Valentines Day will get you ahead of the game. As right now baby slugs are being born, their parents have been breeding in their hidey-holes and about now is when they will start to appear in the dead of night! There are many Garden Myths about slug trap techniques but here’s my Top 5 Tips:
Encourage other wildlife into your garden. The slug has many predators: birds, frogs, toads, hedgehogs and some beetles so by encouraging these into our gardens will help with natural predation. To do that, don’t be too tidy and leave some scruffier parts for them to inhabit. Provide a water source and a wide variety of planting to offer a variety of food and pollen sources.
Protect new growth on plants and repel the slugs from them! Be it barriers or materials to dissuade this can give you a feel-good feeling of action. Pots, gravel, copper rings, egg shells, coffee granules, cornflour are all suggestions to try that different gardeners will swear by.
Nighttime recces with a torch and a bucket – can you pick up a slug? I find it hard to in my bare hands but I’m fine wearing gloves. Slugs and snails are active at night time so forays outside with a torch mean you can literally pick them up and remove them – its totally up to you what you do with them next!
Traps – if you’re organic use beer or salt to lure them to their death or if chemicals don;t bother you use slug pellets. but here’s a trick – use a tall, slender jar (one that had olives in is a good shape and size), put the slug pellets in and lay it on its side on the soil under planting. That way it still creates a trap for the slugs but no other birds and animals can accidentally get trapped. Do it today and have your own Valentine’s Day Massacre!
We’re told time and time again how important our gardens are in keeping the country green and that our plots are a mecca for pollinating insects. The trick is to provide a wide variety of flowering plants as they are often designed with particular insects in mind. Taking this into account here are my Top Six Plants to attract insects into your garden:
Harvest Daisy (Inula) – typically we want to be planting simple flower shapes, and this Harvest Daisy provides that. Simple Daisy shapes that don’t have a double set of petals are easier for pollinators to access and their wide-open shape makes it easier for insects to use as a landing pad.
Lenten Rose (Hellebore) – these flower from Winter to early Spring so provide nectar and pollen early in the year. Choose the single flowering versions to best attract pollinators and enjoy their beautiful flowers at a gloomy time of year.
Ivy (Hedera) – we’re encouraged to keep a corner of the garden untidy as this provides a great habitat for insects and wildlife to use as home! Ivy is a great plant to leave or plant in such an area as it provides a safe haven of nooks and crannies for wildlife to live in and its flowers over the Wintertime provide nectar and pollen at a time when there’s not a lot around!
Lavender – the quintessential British Garden Shrub, Lavender is a great plant for insects and especially Bees. They love its nectar and pollen and it flowers for a long period over the Summer.
Crabapple (Malus)– a small Crabapple tree is a brilliant garden tree but not only for us! It provides beautiful Spring Blossom and Autumn Fruits which we enjoy but also the wildlife in your garden.
Ice Plant (Hylotelephium spectabile) – This succulent looking perennial flowers for ages from Summer onwards. This means there is nectar and pollen available for a long period but also it looks great if you leave the flowerheads on over Winter and therefore provides seed and shelter for birds and insects.
General planting tips for attracting insects into your garden are:
Avoid the use of chemical weed killer and pesticides
Plant a wide variety of colours, scents and shapes of plants
Plant a variety of plants that flower all year round
Avoid plants with double or multi layers of petals
For more information The RHS do a great guide to Plants for Pollinators and you can find their campaign logo on plants they recommend for insects at Garden Centres across the country.
Have you got a favourite insect-friendly plant? Let me know in the comments below. Or if you want help to make planting choices for your garden drop me a line.
Local Gardeners and Groups will be sharing details of these sales about now and I urge you to go! Not only will you pick up plants that have been lovingly grown in your local area you’ll probably meet some of the nicest people there are!
Here’s my seven top reasons to go to a Plant Sale:
You will pick up locally grown plants that like the conditions of the soil in your local area – if it liked it in your neighbour’s garden I’m 80% sure it will like it in your garden!
You’ll meet gardeners and gardeners love to talk plants and gardens and are usually super helpful and lovely!
Plants bought this way are blooming good value for money and are usually being sold in aid of a good cause
Questions are actively encouraged so if you’re new to gardening and aren’t sure what things are or what to do with them … always ask! There’s never a stupid question!
Plants you buy this way haven’t travelled hundreds of miles to get to their destination and are usually in a recycled pot! Gardeners are great ‘make do and menders’ and if you get to see inside anyone’s shed or greenhouse you will find highly creative ‘Heath Robinson’ solutions for all sorts of occasions!
Sharing of ideas. Your new idea for your garden has probably been road-tested by someone else so this is a great place to share your ideas and get gardening tips from those who have been doing it for a while.
There is usually also cake on offer at a Plant Sale and for me there’s no better way to spend a Saturday morning than talking plants over tea and cake!
I have also been making new friends and sharing ideas online this year. It definitely feels like the year of collaboration and although social media gets a lot of criticism the folk I have met online continues to astound me.
Most recently I joined an online Group that supports Mums who run their own businesses – its been invaluable and Laura that runs Power of Mum has created a virtual place where it feels like you’re sharing ideas over tea and cake. I’m hoping to get to one of her events soon to eat cake in person but in the meantime you can read a bit more about me as she kindly featured me in her ‘A day in the life …’ Blog
Keep your eyes open for new of Plant Sales in your local area and let me know what treasures you find in the comments below.
Early Spring seems to be the season of yellow: Daffodils, Winter Aconites, Primroses, Crocosus but lots of people have a thing against yellow flowers in their gardens, and I have to admit I was one of them! I’m not sure why it is, perhaps yellow was unfashionable, a bi too ‘in your face’. But I think I was won over to yellow by orange! It took me to yellow and I have started to love it now, especially with orange!! Yellow also looks great with reds and blues and really zings infront of dark foliage or even a black fence! Here are a few flowers that might win you over to yellow!
Primroses – Quite a delicate shade of yellow to get you started! These hedgerow favourites are a great source of colour during Winter right through to Spring. They selfseed really easily and so will multiply for you. I love them planted in my gravel path, so they have a really natural look and once SApring is here you can transplant them to where you want so is the time of year to ask if you can have a couple from any rfiends with them in their garden!
Inula – This was a gift from a lady I gardened for. Her garden was on the North Downs so very chalky and alkaline, I’m on very sandy soil which is rather neutral in acidity and most of my garden is quite shady. These Inulas seem to love both conditions and from a couple of bits I dug up they have now formed a patch which flower from Summer through to Autumn.
Primrose
Inula
Mexican Satin Flower (Sisyrinchium striatum) – This perennial forms clumps of vertical sword-like leaves and in the summer straight stems shoot up with clusters of the tiniest pale yellow flowers. It loves being in the sun on really well drained soil and is so delicate and gorgeous.
Rosa banksia ‘Lutea’ – A beautiful rambling rose with sprays of small double, deep yellow scented flowers in April and May. Pros: its thornless and great for covering an arch or pergola. Cons: it only flowers once!
Lupin ‘Chandelier’ – Lupins were all the rage last year at the Flower Shows and they come in a wide range of colours; some bright and gaudy but some a bit more toned down and pastelly. I love this yellow Lupin with its geometric spire of flowers. They like it sunny and look great in a border of other plants, and remember to deadhead once its looking scruffy as it may well flower again for you.
Sisyrinchium striatum
Rosa banksiae Lutea’
Lupin ‘Chandelier’
I hope that gives you some ideas, I’m almost certain that yellow makes us feel good, it does bring a smile, so have a go at injecting some sunshine into your garden! Have a look at my board The Yellow Planting Edit on Pinterest for more inspiration.
Traps – if you’re organic use beer or salt to lure them to their death or if chemicals don;t bother you use slug pellets. but here’s a trick – use a tall, slender jar (one that had olives in is a good shape and size), put the slug pellets in and lay it on its side on the soil under planting. That way it still creates a trap for the slugs but no other birds and animals can accidentally get trapped. Do it today and have your own Valentine’s Day Massacre!
Harvest Daisy (Inula) – t
Most recently I joined an online Group that supports Mums who run their own businesses – its been invaluable and Laura that runs 
Keep your eyes open for new of Plant Sales in your local area and let me know what treasures you find in the comments below.
