A cold winter, followed by a long cold spring with a few hot spells, followed by a cool but very dry summer – that’s the summary of the weather for the last eight months! I can’t believe it has been so long since I last posted. A lot has happened in the garden in that time, so I guess I’d better tell you about it.
You may remember the meadow. As winter approached the first seedlings were struggling to come out of the ground. We had very cold weather and lots of snow and we weren’t sure anything had survived, but we were pleasantly surprised to see everything coming up when the snow finally cleared. It seemed to be mainly one plant and after a while we identified it as corn cockle. It grew and grew and soon grew so tall that we couldn’t see the cairn in the middle. Then, in early July it all came into bloom and we had a sea of purple. It was lovely. Sheltered beneath the canopy of these beautiful annuals we could see poppies and yellow rattle starting to appear and we hope to see more of those in the years to come.
Here are a couple of pictures of the meadow as it was in early summer:
Now the corn cockle is dying back, there are loads of seeds in the seed heads, but we will be cutting it down to allow the perennials to find the light and air they need to thrive and grow for next year. The corn cockle is just a nursery crop. The seeds won’t germinate in undisturbed soil, so we won’t see many of them next year.
Originally we had planned mown paths from the various entrances of the meadow to the cairn, but the badgers had other ideas and they have made their own paths through – I guess we’ll be using those!
The dry summer following the very cold winter has damaged a few plants, especially our phormiums, but most things have come through unscathed and some are better because the cold killed off some of the bugs. Horseflies don’t seem to have suffered at all, in fact everyone is reporting lots of these pesky beasties and I’ve had some humungous bites! Here are a few pictures of plants and flowers from this summer:
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