Fatigue had kicked in and I found I had very little energy to do anything at the beginning of July. I tried to do about an hour every day in the garden but all I could manage was to keep the conservatory, house plants and patio plants watered. The fatigue was due to overheating, lack of sleep, dehydration and maybe Sjögren’s related fatigue too (I think). Now I am feeling a bit more energised and can do a bit more work in the garden which is just as well as loads of plants have finished flowering and need a tidy up so they don’t spread seeds everywhere. I know some gardeners leave the spent flower heads on but I only do that if I want them to spread.
The thalictrum is over now so the pollinators are all over the meadowsweet which is nearly over. They are also enjoying the huechera, nepeta, astrantia, lavender, astilbe, loosestrife, honeysuckle, erigeron, spirea, geranium ‘Rozanne’, and campanula garganica . The roses have finished their first good flush and some are looking a bit bare but the moss roses ‘William Lobb’ are looking great and the ‘Generous gardener’ is also doing well.
Rozanne looks good beside the grass ‘Briza media’. They kind of intermingle with each other. They will soon look rather straggly though. Not a single bee in this photo but normally they are covered in them.
The sempervivums in the conservatory are all looking healthy but only a couple have flowered this year (unlike in June 2023 when loads of them were flowering at the same time). ‘Chocolate kiss’ has finally flowered (only one) and only one of the ‘Cinnamon starburst’ has flowered.
I have Chocolate kiss outside too and only one is about to flower. The colour in bright sunshine is fab and goes really well with the astilbe ‘Fanal’ red. Sadly the astilbe are about to finish flowering so I have been dead-heading quite a few plants.
The sempervivum ‘Mint marvel’ looks very similar to ‘Sir William Lawrence’ except Mint marvel is much larger.
Remember that Small Copper butterfly I was trying to photograph in June – well it turned out to be a Small Skipper. I didn’t get a great photo but here it is.
The poppies didn’t last long but I am going to save the seed so at least I should get plenty next year. I just had them in a pot and I don’t think they liked it. The bees loved them.
The space behind the wall has been neglected over the last few years and I really need to get on top of that. I had bought some weed suppressing material a couple of years ago and had planned on spreading that in some areas and topping it with large boulders and stones to keep some weeds at bay. There are tree seedlings from the golf course that are trying the damnedest at getting through the fence and some have been succeeding. Also the sticky willy (Galium aparine) is over 5ft high! It has been using the wire fence as a climbing frame and goodness it really does live up to it’s name. I have been covered in the seeds and needed help picking them all off. Hopefully this year I can get on with what I had planned without life getting in the way again.
We haven’t had much rain at all in the last couple of weeks and I don’t know when we will get some so it is all quite dry out there despite me watering those plants that need it most. There is less floral colour in the garden in July but there is still a lot of interesting foliage colours: greens, yellows, silvers, bronzes and purples.
