My garden this summer (2018)

lots of colour there Jen. Your soil looks really rich. Delphiniums are a gorgeous flower and tend to be devils to germinate.

Jen its lovely! You certainly succeeded with lots of colour! Its all bigger than I imagined too. I loved the Delphiniums too - what did you discover you'd been doing wrong with germination? I have never grown them as its too windy here for tall flowers, but dwarf ones might be OK.

Seaburngirl, thank you. With the Wedding this last summer I really wanted the garden to be colourful. Think where it's a Victorian house so a garden for a fair few years, the top bit of soil is good but about a ft down it is the Shropshire red Sandy soil but also bits of clay lol.

Stera, thank you. With the Delphiniums I followed the planting instructions but one 1 or two only germinated so finally tried putting the seeds in a bowl of warm water then left to soaked over night. Then when I had sown them, made sure it was good and damp then covered with kitchen foil and put them in the conservatory. In the end had about 45 come up. Still had to support a couple even behind my front garden wall but was really pleased with them.

See PM

Good idea Jen. Was kitchen foil aluminium or clingfilm?

Stera, it was aluminium 😀.

My goodness haven't you done well? I also love delphiniums and after failing to get seeds to germinate I gave in and bought a couple of plants only to have them consumed by slugs/snails! Yours look lovely.

Brilliant colours, Jen. That's a lovely Acer. Has pride of place there.

Your garden is lovely. It's nice to look back over the summer to remember what it was like.
I love Delphiniums but never had any success with them. Seeing your dwarf ones has made me want to try again next year.
Now I have nobody to stop me buying plants - Beryl is just as bad as I am lol and we buy more plants than we need … and I am always wondering where on earth to plant them ! :D

Hi Waddy, how are you and hubby doing? Thank you. Think I must be stubborn lol. I wasn't going to be beat by Delphiniums 😀. Google helped. Slugs didn't get them but don't know if it was the warm dry weather but didn't seem to have many slugs this year.

Thank you Eirlys. I love the colour of the Acer. It almost glowed. Previous owner planted it.

Hi Hywel, thank you. I would try again with Delphiniums lol. Tim just gives me a budget but I tend to blow it lol.

I would do the same Jen :D

We are both doing well, thank you. As for slugs I think you maybe right. I noticed this last summer my hostas were less 'holey' than usual.

I am so pleased that you both are doing well Waddy. My test will be how many of the Delphinium come back next year but am thinking of trying Dwarf Dahias from seed for next year. A friend was telling me they are easy to grow, hope she is right 😀

Thank you Jen. Good luck with the Dwarf Dahlias.

You have a lovely garden Jen, love those Cornflowers. I am glad the Passionflower is thriving, should have more blooms next year!

Thank you Shirley. Was really pleased passion flower servived 😀 was also pleased with the cornflowers. Had a large gap and it was late spring so googled what I could sow that late on in the season. Never grown them before but loved watching the wildlife that they atracted

I agree, it's great to see the wildlife visiting the garden. No chance of gardening today, rotten wet & windy weather ... :o(

Only trouble Shirley was Shadow, kept trying to catch the bees on the cornflowers, kept having to tell him to leave them lol. Thought all I need to to take him to vets due to bee sting. Don't think we have it as bad as you today from weather forecast but overcast and light showers. Not gardening weather

:o((