Its on!

Here we are in mid summer and the nights are already drawing in! The garden is all over the place, a bit like the world in general I guess. Our planned open day on the 28th June was cancelled due to the pandemic and bizarrely, the mecanopsis decided to wait until that very day to flower! Much later than usual. Its now mid-July and the candelabra primula are still flowering but the tomatoes have a few flowers and not yet any fruits. On the run up to the planned open day I was getting very nervous, although I knew it wasn't going ahead, I was surprised how little was actually in flower in the cottage border. Even the wonderfully reliable lupins just did nothing, in the previous year I had been a little unsure when selecting the date as the garden was looking pretty special in early June, would it all be over by the 28th? I made a virtual video tour of the garden the week before the planned open day and just a week later it was all change and now, the garden is absolutely jam-packed with colour. I grew monarda didyma from seed last year and each plant was a mere stem with one flower on top, this year they are like well established older plants, much bigger than I had expected for this year. As always I'm looking to change things and move stuff around. The hedge border is not really doing it for me this year so that is going to get some rejigging and with my plan to create a more tropical look in the courtyard, I decided to dig out the bamboo from by the hedge. Last time I moved the bamboo it nearly killed me, so I was kinda dreading it, but once the decision has been made in my head it has to be done! So I headed out with my spade and just my crocks on to test how much of a hold it had on the ground and to me surprise it came out easily, within 10 minutes I was out the back pogo-ing on the spade to cut it in half. Now there is one half in a big pot and the other half has been relocated in the front garden...easy peasy!

A couple of weeks ago I got a note from SGS asking me to fill out a questionnaire. As lock-down restrictions ease, they were looking to see what gardens might be willing to open in line with restrictions for tourism. Suddenly it felt like all was not lost and that this year wouldn't be the complete right off that we all thought back in March. But I have a teeny tiny garden and to comply with social distancing etc, I really couldn't have more than half a dozen folk in the garden at any time, so after a discussion with the district organiser I was given the go ahead to 'open by arrangement' so I can still share my garden with visitors but in a way that is safe and to be honest, less anxiety inducing for me. The SGS are going to be significantly down in donations this year so hopefully a few people will visit.