This always seems to be a good time of year to stop and have a think about what has worked and what hasn’t in the garden over the spring and summer seasons.  In many ways, it feels like the start of the new gardening year as now is a good time of year to plant trees, shrubs, bulbs and  early flowering perennials, as long as isn’t freezing cold that is!  

So what has worked at Charnwood this year:

I have actually grown a successful crop of tomatoes, the first time for several years. The little plants came from Moore’s and, on a recommendation from a pal who is a much better vegetable gardener than me, I bought 3 little pots of ‘Sweet Aperitif’. They have been wonderful, really sweet and tasty and plenty of them which is good as they are very tiny.  I put them in a growbag in the greenhouse which seemed to suit them, although my aforementioned pal had them thriving very well outside in Warwickshire.

The Nicotiana Sylvestris and Double click Cranberry Cosmos have done really well, both in a mixed border with roses, Verbena Bonariensis and hardy geraniums scrambling round. Definitely one to repeat and  I was very pleased to see they defeated the slugs early on.  I did move them into to the next size up pot to get them a bit bigger and more able to survive a slug attack, and I popped some of that weird wool insulation stuff round them which helped a bit I think.

Sweet peas.  I found a couple of very old packets of seeds and sowed what was left in them this time last year and they nearly all germinated.  So, I got a bit of a mixture but they grew well and flowered like mad with not much help from me.  I have taken to cutting some large stems of comfrey and strewing them round their roots from time to time and they must have liked it.

The meadow was lovely for quite a while: native daffodils first, then a few bluebells followed by wildflowers such as cow parsley, vetch, buttercups, knapweed and yellow rattle. Plus some spectacular thistles - the birds loved the seeds!

The roses came good too despite some of them being waterlogged early in the year.  Gertrude Jekyll was the best performer, still flowering like mad as I write in mid September.

Salvias continue to be a mainstay here: surprisingly hardy and really long flowering.  One which from memory is called ‘Lavender Dilly’ has been particularly lovely.  I know ‘Hot Lips’ is popular, but here ‘Royal Bumble outperformed it and I do prefer the more intense red.

Now what hasn’t worked:

·         Slugs defeated the courgettes, runner beans and potatoes;

·         The box plants at the front of the house, bought many years ago from Ivor Thompson and lovingly tended, are finally showing signs of the box caterpillar;

·         A climbing hydrangea has been a devil of a job to keep going.  I’m told perseverance is needed but you can only keeping going for so long!

·         The blue agapanthus didn’t flower much at all but the white one was lovely.  It was in a sunnier spot so some moving to be done I guess.

So, as ever with gardening, you lose some and you win some!  All the very best of luck to you all for the start of the ‘new’ gardening year!