The June garden settled gently into the early gentle misty rain of the month, elegantly following the season to meet the brilliant sunshine that dawned on the day of the summer solstice. From then on we tumbled head first into those endless summer days that memories are made of, days that sent the temperature gauge of our newly purchased Garden clock, shooting up to unheard of heights.
This month in the Ednovean Farm gardens summer has truly arrived, bringing tumbling roses to scent the courtyard and the verdant growth to underline the Italian Gardens subtropical claims. So join me this month as we journey into summer wrapped in the unexpected heat wave that shapes our days as we work in the gardens.
The scent of the summer gardens
Each year it flowers around Father’s Day a poignant reminder of summers long passed and a gift for years to come. The sweet scent will fill our courtyards for all too short a time, before settling down again to slumber until the next summer.
The delicious scents of summer linger in the courtyard gardens long into the dusk as the coppery rose buds of the Albertine rose open to soft voluptuous blooms. This rose always holds precious memories of my childhood family garden as it blooms each year and my late father gave me plant upon my marriage.
I’ve added some lavender to the burgeoning collection of pots in the courtyards and terraces, to add to the layers of summer scents and chose a blousy Lavandula Angustifolia Edelweiss for its billowing romantic form, to complement the white Geraniums on the garden room terrace and a neat trough of softly coloured Lavandula Ardeche Blue.
Vegetable pots without plots!
Charles has an ambition to set up a Potage in one of the Italian Garden rooms but as novice veggie growers we thought dipping our toes in the water with a few pots would be a more sensible entrée to productive gardening.
Charles sent for several learned tomes on the subject over the winter and so when I spotted some nice courgette plants for sale outside of a garden gate for 25p each whilst exercising Danni the die was cast! They were soon joined by some slightly wilting Beef Tomatoes plants from a DIY centre and after discussion with a knowledgeable gardening guest two “Money-maker” heirloom Tomatoes – a variety I also remembered from my childhood. A Pepper Melons and Cucumber soon joined the motley group and the Ednovean Vegetable pots without plot, were born! Too late we checked “The Book” to see that two courgette plants are sufficient for a family and that Melons are nearly impossible to grow. Still the exercise will be interesting and our friends are already making “courgette” excuses!
June’s heat wave arrived with the Summer Solstice
What a joy the heat wave that unexpectedly arrived with the Summer Solstice, has been to the garden this year, even if the lawn has started to fade to a shadow of its former self.
The sub tropical border has simmering in the heat, with the palms now provided some much needed shade to eat supper under and olives starting to from. The temperature gauge (which I must admit to a slight obsession with at the moment) has daily recorded temperatures around the thirties.
The soaring temperatures has brought the rare nightly discipline of watering the pot plants around the courtyards –everything else has to fend for itself of course as ours is a fairly drought proof garden stocked with Mediterranean type plants. But the little nightly watering ritual sees me visit each plant in turn, still bathed in the heat of the day to be rewarded by the pure scent of summer as the water meets the hot dry earth and released the pure scent of the soil.
June the opening act of summer
As June slips to July already the Ednovean Farm Gardens are changing, with the hot colours of the summer flowers flow across the gardens and we are looking forward to the months ahead of high summer in Cornwall heralded by the Summer solstice!
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