Pimm's, Petals and Panic Watering

Britain has a summer - alert the media!

Audio version (above)

Oh my goodness, it’s sunny and still it hasn’t rained - that's nine days on the bounce now, I’m sure. Summer is really happening. Let’s face it, just five consecutive days of wall-to-wall sunshine in this country is enough to make a summer these days. Over the past week and a half I’ve been awoken by a most-welcome early-morning breeze which has lapped gently across my face, before I squint from a sleepy-dust-encrusted eye at a perfect cerulean sky, though the open window. It calls me, encouraging me to leap energetically from beneath my snuggly duvet. I pull on shorts, a T-shirt and head out into the garden for my morning meander, breathing in the delicious vanilla scent from two Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’ shrubs, planted with great intention alongside the pathway leading from kitchen to garden. My morning meander happens year-round, largely, with the exception of those ghastly days when cold, driving rain beats relentlessly at the windows. And, in full disclosure, there’s very little ‘leaping’ from a cosy bed from November through to February, when it’s more of a ‘pull myself reluctantly’ kinda vibe.

Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’

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I don't know what's happened to my garden this year, and forgive me for being so very self-indulgent, but it’s looking blooming amazing, even if I do say so myself. And, he added, raising his hand earnestly, in the interests of openness and honesty, there was a much lighter hand on the gardening tiller from me than in previous leaden skied winters, ensconced as I am now behind this trusty laptop. Nonetheless, the garden has erupted into a confectionary of colours, a tsunami of flowers, and an effervescence of foliage - it’s been quite overwhelming, reminiscent of the gardens I slaver over in The English Garden, or Gardens Illustrated magazines. I've taken scores of pictures, for fear that this is a dream, an illusion, and that I'll eventually awaken to the reality of a lacklustre garden playing host to a meagre clutch of rain-balled roses, a handful of mildewed sweet-peas and a patchy, jaundiced lawn.

A most welcome abundance of blooms

So what has happened this year that might not have occurred in previous years? Why this Garden of Eden? The answer, my lovely gardening friends is simple. I wish it weren’t. I wish it were something I’ve been toiling over for years, tweaking, adjusting until the magic had reached perfection, ready then for me to take the elevator into BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den, nervously facing Meaden, Sulleyman, Bartlett, Jones, et al, to extoll the secrets behind my burgeoning and prolifically flowering garden. Meaden and Jones battling it out, imploring me to work alongside them, each feigning an air of nonchalance, but deeply desperate to have this horticultural wonder product in their portfolio. Sadly, I’ll be facing no dragons, not when the secrets to my success lie within a compost bin, an old watering can, and a bottle of plant fertiliser.

Sound too good to be true? Well, here’s the story…

I’ve always expounded the virtues of putting your money where your soil is - a pound on the hole, a penny on the plant. You’ll have read it here, no doubt, countless times. But, it’s true - I’m a gardener, trust me. A thick mulch of well-rotted garden compost laid in February feeds the damp soil beneath, which, in turn, feeds our plants. And, during the dry months of February and March this year, watering can-fulls of harvested rain were flooded upon moisture loving plants in my borders. In April, despite the complaints of aroma-sensitive neighbours the year before, I broadcast handfuls of chicken manure pellets between emergent perennials and awakening bulbs. And, the good news keeps on coming, with pots and containers subjected to a similar nutrient-rendering routine. Dahlia tubers were laid gently into containers filled with peat-free multipurpose compost, enriched with more well-rotted garden manure and, a handful of blood, fish and bone. My potted hosta collection, totalling over 180 plants, has been placed in shallow trays, each being watered with a diluted, organic plant fertiliser every fortnight. The results are outstanding.

Hostas fed and watered from drip-trays

So, if it’s as easy as that, why haven’t I done it before? Well I have, to a degree, but work, family commitments and hundreds of other frankly feeble excuses have meant I haven’t afforded my garden the time it deserves. This year, having retired from my three-year term as Chair of the Garden Media Guild, I was determined to enjoy and spend more time in my garden. Now as I wander around it, chest puffed out like the extremely proud parent I am, I smile, thinking back to this time last year when my lacklustre Clematis ‘Belle Etoile’ clung desperately to its cortex-steel obelisk, but now blooming exuberantly with clouds of deep purple blooms, each with a small but perfectly formed golden boss of stamens at its centre. Since early May, clusters of highly-scented rose flowers have nodded gently in the breeze, painting the garden with splashes of peach, apricot, pink and white, rising above a haze of purple Lavender ‘Munstead’ and frothy chartreuse pillows of Alchemilla mollis. Scores of the almost translucent, cheery flowers of Geranium Brookside gazing upwards at me, in awe at my horticultural prowess, or perhaps they’re just bathing their blue-button faces in the sun?

Water, feed, deadhead and repeat

An army of containers home unexpectedly oversized dahlias, the likes of which I’ve not witnessed in this garden before, blooming already in shades of brooding, dark-claret, tangerine, purple and pale-orange. Galaxies of buds wait expectantly beneath the sumptuous flowerhead, waiting their turn to glory in the spotlight. Next to the greenhouse, where the old potting shed once stood, the new composite-decked area is clothed with containers of sweetly scented sweet peas, training begonias and cosmos.

The continued warm, dry-spell sees me sprinting, well, walking quite quickly, actually, watering cans in hand, as I extract the last of the rainwater from two large water-butts. Then it’ll be over to the garden tap and my rather decrepit hosepipe, which irrigates me and the kitchen window from pin-pricked-sized holes along its length (note to self, treat yourself to a new hosepipe at the weekend).

And so there we have it, and of course, as I write this last paragraph, a cool breeze blows into the office. I peer out to a sky the colour of cold wood ash, dim, dreary and lifeless, and put my Pimm’s back on the table. That’ll teach me to sing too loudly about summer.

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I’m hosting the ‘How To’ stage at Hampton Court Flower Show next week, so look out for my Hampton Diaries, coming to a device near to you!

Thanks for reading, and, as always, if you’ve enjoyed this piece why not hit the heart and share buttons below – it's the digital equivalent of deadheading: quick, satisfying, and helps things to flourish!