A look back on the year

With just a few weeks left of this year, this blog post is a look back over what is for this garden the fourth year.

2019 couldn't have been more different to the previous year. Where in 2018 we had a heatwave and drought that lasted for months, this year it was rain, rain and more rain here in Scotland. We had some heat too, even topped 30 degrees C which for here is incredibly hot, but heat and rain can only mean one thing...the garden went absolutely bonkers!

In April it did seem as if we were going to have a re-run of those droughts of the previous year. I remember driving back up the hill towards a large plume of smoke, another large heath fire. Last year we had seen a few in the area and no sooner were they under control that another broke out. The drought also created a lack of growth in fodder crops such as grass and hay was practically non existent. My fears of another bone dry summer soon faded when the rains came.....and forgot to stop!

Over the winter, a number of calendula refused to give in to the cold weather and kept flowering, so I just let them and before I knew it, the front bed was absolutely over run with them and Welsh poppies too. All the careful planting I had done the previous autumn disappeared below a sea of yellow and orange. The bees were happy though.

One of the biggest challenges for the yellow and blue bed is actually getting flowers that are actually blue, not a shade of mauve but a real true blue, so I was quite excited to find Nigella 'Moody Blues' and when they came out they really did put on a grand show of blues. In the courtyard the Mecanopsis betonicifolia, Himalayan poppy also put on a great show. It might seem odd to keep it in the hot courtyard but its handy for the tap as I like to give them plenty of water and a good misting daily.

Another star performer was the most exquisite Silene gallica var quinquevulnera the 'small flowered catchfly' with emphasis on the small, the flowers are tiny!

It was very fast to germinate and once planted out proved to be very uncomplicated if a little floppy!

Early in the year I fired up the electric propagator and sowed canna lilies and banana Musa hookerii, now renamed M. sikkimensis. The cannas germinated within a few days, the banana was a no show, but I've got some new seeds sitting in the propagator as I type.

The warm wet weather caused the plants to grow tall and positively voluptuous! In a way it was great to see the beds and borders looking so full, but it also meant that some of the smaller and later performing plants were hidden. It was only when I finally decided to move the echinops to the back of the border (I nearly did this last year, but thought nah, it will be ok.....oops) that I re found a very sickly looking Japanese anemone and the salvia nemorosa, both of whom breathed a huge sigh of relief when they once again saw the light of day.

One of the more disappointing plants was the deep red Cosmos 'Rubenza'. The colour was glorious, deep and luxuriant, by the plants were spindly and not very robust.

With the garden romping away in June, the candelabra primulas looking great around the pond and the digitalis and lupins giving height and so much colour everywhere I rather rashly decided to contact Scotland's Garden Scheme with a view to opening to the public in a year or so. Annie the rep came out and got the guided tour and with much encouragement the garden is opening on 28 June 2020. Fingers crossed for perfect weather.

The bed by the front path was enlarged last year and as usual I've 'borrowed' plants from other parts of the garden to fill it. This year I've moved the large Deuztia over to the sunroom border and the rest of the bed will be largely purples and apricots with the Verbascum 'Southern Charm' leading the way, that's the plan anyway. This year however it had other ideas. I was fairly sure I had sowed the poppy, Purple Fizz, so when loads of poppies started to make an appearance I just left them, and there were a few different varieties came up, some with big double flowers, some that barely lasted a day, but none of them were purple and I later found the unopened packet of Purple Fizz in the pocket of my old coat. Hooray for the self seeders!

So its been quite an exciting year and I've learned a number of things including: give each plant more room. It's so important to give them space to flourish. You can still pack the plants in to cover the ground but crowd them and you will get spindly, weak plants at best and at worse you will lose them altogether. The other really important thing I have learned this year is regardless of what you plan if you just let go a little the garden will offer up its own surprises.