July in the Ednovean Farm Garden

Ednovean farm and Echiums frame the lawn

Ah July and the garden begins to party. Our usual contrasting leaf shapes and textures have been joined by an explosion of colour this month in celebration of the zenith of the year. I’m afraid though I must now admit that the photos will be few and far between for this months diary ad our camera has had a minor hiccup and only took black photos –true it has been ailing for a while but this month it finally succumbed to a version of Canon Berry Berry and is in intensive care at the camera hospital even as we speak. Still maybe I can describe the garden to you this month in its summer finery along with the few photos I did manage

I must say that for July the weather has been decidedly unseasonable “Active” plunging from baking hot days to wild winds in the blink of an eye. For us the garden compartments have proved a boon this month along with strappy wind proof plants and the garden has met the challenge well.

“The garden was designed with the weather in mind to make sheltered spots to sit”
B&B guest

As one of our B&B guest remarked to his wife, as they set off with their papers and books into the garden

Topiary and cats in the summer garden — Spud Cat Esq at the end of our top courtyard terrace that forms a focal point from our front door

This month in the garden

This month has been about all of the hot colours with the vibrant red crocosmia Lucifer making a perfect foil for the mounds of Aloe striatula with their orange spires. The daylilies of course speak of summer days and finally the Agapanthus with vast blue flowers that seem almost to float on top impossibly fine stems. The latter, love to self seed itself into the gravel terraces making and I leave the seed heads later on for this purpose. We have quite a collection now in front of the garden room and Blue room and I often weed a few out for friends and neighbours – the roots spread out across the mypex barrier below the gravel into a surprisingly extensive root system.

Formal Parterre — The box parterre is fighting back from its box blight at the moment and now neatly trimmed once more

The box parterre has finally been tidied into neat geometrical hedges once again and had a second spray of herbal box treatment – so far so good! The structure and rhythm that it lends to garden is a delight and it would be such a shame to lose it. The Italian Garden on a larger scale finally finished the electric hedge trimmer in a cloud of smoke but has had a second light trim too taking care to preserve the pretty white flowers that attract a tumble of Beas into the garden in a happy buzzing throng.

“pretty white flowers that attract
a tumble of Beas into the garden”

Alas i did not have time to take pictures of it before the unfortunate demise of the camera and so my photo diary stops at the 17th in one of our sheltered courtyard gardens although somehow I think the rambling roses escaping over the wall from a neighbor’s walled garden and the electric blue eryngiums sum up our summer days int the garden. As soon as the camera comes back i hope to pop the last photo in my diary until then………