Looking Good 17th June

It’s early summer and here’s the reward for all your planning. June is the time that most gardens start to pump up the flower production. It’s that heady combination of warmth coupled with plenty of moisture in the earth which means the garden is bursting into life with colourful flowers.

This week I’ve cut buckets full of beautiful blooms and all of them give me that country garden style. Here are Clematis, Roses, Nepeta and Geraniums with Ox-Eye Daisies and Feverfew. They are all easy to grow and super productive which is just the way I like it!

Blue-Buckets

I’m growing flowers for cutting but it’s not just the flowers that are looking good. There are grasses and Allium seed heads and some plants which I grow specifically for foliage and they are also producing lovely long stems now too. The bucket of yellow foliage is Euphorbia oblongata which has overwintered in one of my cutting beds. There’s a variegated Applemint in the Clematis bucket and some plain green Mint in the Nepeta bucket.

Clematis&Mint

The photo below show just one stem of Euphoria oblongata. It’s an amazing hardy plant I grew from seed. Just six to ten plants will give you masses of stems.

Euphorbia-Oblongata

Does your garden need a boost? If your garden is lacking a few flowering plants or even foliage this month you can soon put that right with a trip to a plant nursery. They will have all the early summer flowering perennials and roses available for sale right now. That can be expensive if you need a trolley full of plants to boost your borders. If you would rather produce your own plants (and save some money!) then you can easily do that too this month. Take softwood cuttings of perennials (eg:nepeta) herbs (eg: mint) and shrubs (eg: lilac) or sow some seeds of the lovely plants you want to see in your own garden this time next year.

Early-June-Collage

It’s easy to grow your own plants. Taking cuttings or sowing seeds is simple if you know how… just let me know if you want some guidelines/photos showing how to propagate specific plants and I’ll try and help you out.

Are you joining in with Looking Good today? You can include anything garden related… fruit and veg, recipes, flowers, foliage, your local parks and allotments, garden wildlife and so on. Just comment on this post and add your link to your post which should include a link to this post. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s going on in your area.

Have a lovely day and Happy Gardening! Gillian 😉

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Looking Good 10th June

Woo Hoo! Rain arrived this morning after a long dry period. The water had an amazing effect on the garden. Everything seemed to perk up immediately with leaves looking lush and plump instead of dry and crispy! We receive quite a lot of rain here in the north of England and it’s easy to take it for granted… until it doesn’t arrive. So I was very happy to see glittering raindrops on foliage today.
Foliage-Collage

But it’s June and flowers are the stars this month. Roses in particular. There’s nothing quite like an arching rose to lend your home that country style. It’s a cliche I know but having a beautiful Rose flowering around your front door is the perfect way to welcome visitors and of course it’s quite lovely for you and all your family too! Roses are available in nurseries and garden centres now and you’ll be able to see the flowers before you buy. They only take a couple of years to reach 6 feet or more in height so you’ll soon have that country cottage look.

This is a climbing Iceberg rose. It’s healthy and vigorous and produces masses of creamy white flowers with a delicate scent. On our south facing wall it flowers on and off from May until December.

Rose-Collage

The other rose that caught my eye today is a shrub rose. This one only flowers once each year and it’s not quite in full flower yet but the buds are all there. Each year I tell myself that I’m taking it out (I don’t know what it is… it’s not the rose I wanted – wrong label possibly) but when I see it in flower, see how healthy it is and more to the point HEAR all the bees buzzing around to snap up the pollen I forget all about removing it for a ‘better’ specimen. It can stay for now.

Shrub-Rose

I’d love to see your garden this week. It’s June and our gardens are all bursting with gorgeous blooms. You are most welcome to join in with Looking Good.

Have a brilliant weekend and I’ll see you next week. Gillian 🙂

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