Summer – Page 2 – Notes From My Garden

Early Summer Showtime

Published on June 7, 2025June 6, 2025 by Catherine29 Comments

Roses, Peonies, Clematis, and many perennials are now starting to put on their summer show. The weather unfortunately is not. It has completely ignored the ‘Summer’s Here’ command for the sun to shine and temperatures to rise. It’s been a rainy and cold week, with strong winds that have left damaged plants behind in many gardens. Snow in the hills is being forecast – but to be honest, that’s not unusual for Scotland. Skiers will have fun. All is not gloom though as we’ve had a couple of dry days this week (or part-days), enough for me to get out with the camera and search for hardy survivors. Just enough to fill the six requirements for this week’s Six on Saturday.

I’m having problems with the WordPress slideshow at the moment; it’s also affecting previous posts, so for the moment, I’m only posting single images.

Continue reading →

Dahlia Disaster

Published on February 22, 2025February 19, 2025 by Catherine25 Comments

Six on Saturday: The Before, The Now and The Future

Today, it’s six images—from the past, from the present, and from what is yet to come.

Each year it’s the same – I pot up the dahlia tubers and look forward to the day when the garden will be vibrant with the colour, shape, and form of spectacular dahlia blooms! Like many others in this country, the miserable summer weather of 2024 was a challenge for plants. The abundance of snails here had only one aim – to eat everything in the garden. However, it wasn’t all gloom, the dahlias bloomed but did fall short of expectations because of an excess of rain, wind damage and snails with their insatiable appetites. But as every gardener, amateur or professional will testify, there’s always the hope of a better growing season one year ahead!

At the first frosts, the tubers were lifted, cleaned, drained upside down in the greenhouse and stored in open crates in the garage. l checked them just before Christmas and they were fine, but another look a few weeks ago revealed a sorry sight. Every dahlia tuber was mouldy and rotten and every last one had to be binned.

Continue reading →

Overwintering Rudbeckias

Published on February 19, 2025February 18, 2025 by Catherine8 Comments

The ‘Enchanted’ series of Rudbeckia has captured my heart over the past few years, but while they are beautiful, the plants don’t overwinter in my garden. I was inspired by Rosie when she mentioned last September that she overwintered her rudbeckias in her greenhouse and I thought it was worthwhile trying this with the Rudbeckia ‘Enchanted’ series plants.

During October the plants were potted into 3 ltr plastic pots, three of which went into the greenhouse and four into the cold frame.

There is a noticeable difference between those kept in the greenhouse and those in the cold frame. The greenhouse plants are showing good growth (perhaps too much for this time of year) while those from the cold frame have only a hint of new growth.

Continue reading →

Late Summer Gardening: What’s Growing in Week Two of August

Published on August 10, 2024August 9, 2024 by Catherine20 Comments

I opened the blinds early one morning this week and looked down on the garden. ‘Autumn has definitely arrived’, I thought, before remembering that it was only the 5th of August. The garden still has plenty of flowers, but that morning the garden looked defeated as the rain hammered down and the wind howled. I kind of felt a bit like that myself.

The explanation from the experts is that Scotland has either been under, or on the cold side of the jet stream that has stubbornly refused to move out of the way to allow warm air to flow up from the south. I think most of us here have accepted that all hope of a real summer has vanished. My mind is now starting to turn to late winter and spring flowering bulbs and plants. There’s always something else to cheer up home gardeners, isn’t there.

Here is my contribution to this week’s Six on Saturday.

Continue reading →

Late Summer Gardening: What’s Growing in Week One of August

Published on August 3, 2024August 3, 2024 by Catherine21 Comments

My visiting family have all returned home and our house is quiet again. The garden has been receiving some much-needed attention – it’s amazing the difference deadheading and pulling annual weeds make! While we haven’t had a heatwave, we did enjoy a couple of pleasantly warm days this week. Hooray! Today I’m heading out to a lunchtime Family History event and the current rainfall means I can happily enjoy the the indoor activities without feeling guilty about neglecting the garden on a good gardening day!

Here’s my Six on Saturday peek at what’s blooming in the garden this week.

Dahlia ‘Carolina Moon’ is one of the more successful dahlias and has flowered again this year after being lifted and stored, over several years. It has plenty of buds and although the leaves are damaged, the flowers have so far survived with only a little bit of damage. How I wish I could say that about some of the others that have been mercilessly nibbled.

Continue reading →