The best bits of this summer

Last day of July, can you believe it? Here in London we are back to 20 or so degrees and showers. Anyone who saw the women’s cycling from last Sunday on TV? That’s the kind of weather we have had more or less since beginning of April, just with a few exceptionally good days here and there in between. Summer? What summer? And what about August? Not looking any better I am afraid, the first 2 weeks of August is supposed to be, well you guessed it: showers with some driers spells in between.

A garden with many rooms – July

I have always wanted a big garden. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a huge garden, a garden where I could have a shed for my tools, another shed for potting, a greenhouse for tender plants and early vegetables, an area for composting, a vegetable plot, a garden big enough for several mature trees, some fruit trees and some berry bushes, a barbeque next to a seating area and a Jacuzzi, and lots and lots of my favourite plants and flowers of course. And I wanted a garden with different themed rooms with plants according to each theme. Unfortunately, to have a garden that size living in London you need very deep pockets, as property prices come at a premium here. I don’t even own my property, I rent it, but I have lived here almost 11 years and when I moved into this house I couldn’t wait to start developing what was then just a piece of overgrown jungle in the backyard.

Olympic weather in London!

We have finally got summer in London! About time you might say, we have had rain almost every day since beginning of April but now it seems it’s finally our turn to get sunshine and warm weather, very nicely timed for the start of the 2012 Olympics in London. By the time we get to Tuesday or Wednesday this week we are expected to hit over 30 degrees Celsius mid-day, I can’t wait! Those blasted jet streams have decided to go north after all, and they can just stay there until Christmas for my sake!

Yikes, caterpillars - help needed!!

Some flowers in our gardens go on flowering for a long time, like many roses for example. Other plants flower just for a short time and then it’s a whole year till next time. I have been eagerly waiting for my lovely Crocosmia 'Lucifer' to flower, a large clump that produces very tall spikes of absolutely stunning bright red flowers. The clump is so big now that I have been thinking of dividing it, if I only knew where to put a second group of crocosmias – I absolutely love these flowers, but I don’t really have room for more in my garden.

My July flowers

I have been trying to take photos for the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day the last couple of days, but it hasn’t been easy – dodging the showers! I so wanted to show you how much my garden has progressed since last month and it would have been nice to show everything off in glorious sunshine, but alas, the rays of sunshine have been few and far between the last month. Well, not just the last month, the last three months to be honest!

Beautiful Lilium regale

I got my very first lilies in 2004, 3 fat Lilium regale bulbs which I first planted in a large tub. Since then my collection has grown to around 80 Lilium regale, my next door has got 20 of mine and a friend of mine has another 15 – all from the 3 bulbs I got 8 years ago. Each flower produce an abundance of seeds, and each seed has the potential to become a new plant, so if I wanted to I could soon have thousands of new lilies! But I haven’t got room for thousands, or enough friends and neighbours, so I only let a few go to seed every year to replenish my stock.

My new David Austin roses

There is something special about David Austin roses. I guess if you grow roses you know what I mean, if you don’t grow roses you might not even have heard about David Austin and his rose project. I have wanted one of his roses for a long time, for years! Last autumn I redesigned a large part of my garden, got rid of the last bit of my lawn (yeah!), and decided I actually could squeeze in a few more plants in my already very full garden.

You can’t be serious?!

Every Sunday I have the same ritual, checking the 10 day weather forecast to see what to expect. As a keen gardener the weather is important to me, it has a huge impact on many aspects of gardening, in terms on what to expect to flower, when to water, when to sow, when to do almost anything – including when I can go outside and do what I like best; spend time in my garden. Mind you, I do put on 4 layers of clothes in February and venture out, despite bitterly cold winds, and I have also been found in the garden in bucketing rain – but that’s not very often.

I just love red things!

I guess you already know what this post is going to be about? Yes, the colour red! I suppose most people have a favourite colour, or some colours they prefer, and in the same way has colours they don’t like that much. I can’t stand lime green, but I like most other shades of green! But when it comes to red I have a special shade of red I really, really like. Not post-box red or tomato red, that doesn’t do it for me, but the dark red, crimson red, almost blackish-red – I think it is the most gorgeous colour!