Parks & Gardens in London, the UK & abroad
The Fortnight Garden at the end of May – it is hard to believe we are nearly at the end of the fifth month of the year. In another four weeks we will be half way through 2020, a year which I don’t think anyone will ever forget. The wind has swirled around the garden this week, preventing me from doing very much and so I have been slowly finding my feet again after a diagnosis of IBS and a week of constant pain.
The front garden is looking just as abundant as the back garden – in the evening light it looked more like high summer than autumn!
There are some late roses – William Shakespeare and Graham Thomas
The bed which was replanted in the spring is working! The Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ are marvellously vibrant – I may plant a few more in the spring – and the Japanese Anemones ‘Honorine Jobert’ are starting to clump in the shade of the hedge.
The sedums are spectacular!
My roses are flowering abundantly but the flower heads are so heavy the stems are bending downwards and when I tried to lift and stake I broke a stem. I phoned David Austin and was told that the roses will get stronger as they age, and that I should consider pruning in November, rather than February. I think I should also provide stronger stakes, in a kind of cradle shape. So far I can’t find anything on the internet…
I wondered about this shape, which I found on Pinterest –
Or perhaps a more natural material –
The support seems to look like this –
Or perhaps a combination of the two, a vase shape, with an inner ring, and made out of willow, or hazlewood –
The light at the end of the day has a beautiful quality. The David Austin roses (‘William Shakespeare’ and ‘Graham Thomas’) are heavily in bud, and well-staked and sprayed, so I hope we will have a good show this year after the unkind weather last year.
I enjoyed the evening, and the flowers, with a glass of pink wine, but I would have liked to share the enjoyment. I remembered something a friend once said – ‘My soul is lonely’.