Time for a little enforced idleness

This year we’ve taken a break from opening each month for the NGS, simply to allow the garden to rest for a year and breathe, and for us to take stock of how we’d like the garden to look in the years ahead now that we’re all getting older and tasks are taking longer. It would be easy to give up and downsize but that’s not our way and although the garden is beginning to look a little overgrown in part, there is a comfortable feel about the place that has perhaps been missing these past few years. Perhaps it’s because we’ve relaxed a little, or indeed have been busy doing other things or

maybe it’s just that we’ve been able to look at the garden as a whole, rather than just the small patch we would be working on like fury trying to get everything looking its very best for the next opening. We have however, welcomed a few garden groups this year and I must confess that more than once I have overheard visitors say: “You know, when you sit in your own garden, you only see the jobs that need doing but when you sit in someone else’s there’s a wonderful sense of enforced idleness”. They were quite right and it got me thinking that we all spend far too much time “doing” and not enough time “contemplating” our gardens. Of course, with the weather so far this Summer there’s been precious little opportunity to sit back, take stock and make new plans. Last weekend however was an exception when friends came to visit. They have been coming to Lewis since the very beginning and the weather did allow us to sit out at dusk and reminisce a little. The conversation could have been maudlin but it wasn’t at all – in fact it was quite the opposite and

filled me with hope for the plans we have for the future. Plants that our friends remembered as small cuttings are now large shrubs and it was a joy to show them the large collection of Hydrangeas we have and to let them take cuttings away with them; the start of another new garden just as we had done in 1992.

So, I decided to act on our guest’s and our friend’s advice and took some time out to appreciate the garden; its strengths, its weaknesses and to make some decisions about which new planting schemes I’d like to introduce. It really doesn’t matter what the size of your garden might be, a smart phone is all you need. As you walk round your garden make a visual record of plants that need moving or of areas that need attention so that in the Winter months when everything has died back you can remember where the plants were located. Sitting on the Terrace I saw a complete new view I

had not noticed before. Why? It was because I sat in a different chair than usual and saw a familiar view from a slightly different angle. The plants and shrubs had grown to slightly overshadow a path providing a screen to the lawn beyond, which only a few years ago would have been visible from where I sat. It reminded me that gardens aren’t museums, they don’t stand still. Don’t rush to preserve them as they are for eternity or you’re in danger of not noticing anything new and taking it for granted.

Of course this wonderful sense of enforced idleness doesn’t last long for the summer marches on relentlessly disregarding the weather and the garden is running away with itself; armfuls of veg to be picked and hedges needing to be trimmed, roses to be deadheaded. It would be easy to feel overwhelmed by it all and I must admit sometimes I do, but the sheer bountifulness of it all easily pushes those feelings aside and allows me a little time to appreciate the little triumphs and successes of the year so far.

The coming month is one of Richard’s favourite times of the year because it will soon be the main seed collecting season. Armed with his canvas seed collecting bag stuffed full of brown paper bags and snippers, he will spend hours wandering the garden, snipping off dried seed stems from anything that he feels is worth growing for the nursery. He is a great believer in sowing when the seed is ready so I shall expect the polytunnels to start filling with empty seed trays of drying stems, then watch them being filled with the freshly sifted seed. Most will be varieties of perennial Foxglove or hardy annuals such as Ammi majus, Agrostemma, Marigold or Gypsophilia, Cornflowers, Sweet peas and Zinnia.These will be grown on in the polytunnels until the spring when they will be potted up ready for the new season and the cycle begins all over again.

Gardening jobs for the coming month

Mow meadows now to help scatter established wildflower seeds.

Water evergreen shrubs such as camellias and rhododendrons thoroughly this month so next year’s buds develop well.

Dead head annual bedding plants and perennials to encourage them to flower into the autumn.

Lift and dry onions, shallots and garlic once the foliage has flopped over and yellowed. Store them in onion bags to prevent mould developing.

Harvest French and runner beans little and often to prevent them from setting seed. Pick runner beans regularly to stop them becoming stringy.

If you have a glut of raspberries, blackberries or loganberries, freeze them on trays for a couple of hours and then bag them for use over winter.

Damp down your greenhouse on hot days to increase humidity and deter red spider mites.

More information on the garden at Lewis Cottage can be found here : https://lewiscottageplants.co.uk