Early summer garden in 2021

After a long cold Spring we have eventually sprung into Summer with what has been a lovely couple of weeks. After the disappointment of Spring, the trees and shrubs have suddenly unfurled their greenery and there is a promise of lushness that is typical in the garden over Summer.

It's been a while since we updated the blog. It's difficult to think about where the time has gone but what have we been doing? When we first moved in it was about getting to know the garden and keeping on top of the maintenance jobs. As novices, there were some casualties of our inexperience but over the years we have learned more about what we have and how to look after them. 

In the burnside garden we've planted various heathers which are lovely in the Autumn. We have marsh marigold out just now, though the burn itself is quite dry as we've had so little rain over the last two weeks. The kitchen side garden is coming to life; the birds love the conifers for nesting and we had a young fledgling sitting underneath one of them last night.

One thing we have done throughout the garden is re-lay the paths to try to reduce the amount of time weeding and also to keep the garden looking smart. It's been a labour of love but has made such a difference to the garden.

In the basement side garden we simplified it by removing a bed. In the main now, the feature is a bed of Hostas which have always thrived here. At the front of the house we have a stone seat which is perfect for reading in the sun, having a cup of coffee or watching the bees on the two Cotoneasters we have. I've also been very excited to see the Bearded Iris throw out a flower head again! We've been here 12 years and only ever seen it flower once before.

We have also been busy with the roadside garden in the past 12 months. This part of the garden is mainly out to shrubs and small trees and we planted two apple trees. One of them has done really well and has some lovely blossom on it. We've had a few apples from it for a crumble or two. This part of the garden remains a work in progress but we tend to keep this section quite natural for wildlife. A great feature of the garden is the beech hedge which separates the roadside garden from the basement side garden - the birds love the hedge and I love watching them from the office window.

There is a lot of green in the garden right now. There are buds of promise of colour now that the tulips and daffodils have died back and we'll see some changes over the next few weeks.