Cambridge Flower Journal

September overflow

I’ve very much left our garden to do its own thing this past few weeks, following the intense heat. It looks to have appreciated a little rain and a few cooler days, and is now a tangle of purple flowers, dandelions and towering brown teasels ready for autumn.

Elsewhere, verbena with other aster behind

Pretty ‘Scepter’d Isle’ enjoys its (I suspect) last bloom of the year

☀K

Late summer roses, asters and a mystery flower

The past couple of months have been very busy and warm.

The below photographs capture a third flush of roses, pretty asters, a giant himalayan honeysuckle, dried-out teasels, and my dad’s favourites (yellow hellenium).

Cosmos, verbena and a self-sown hairy willowherb have been allowed to go as wild as they like as September approaches.

Mystery flower…later identified as hairy wilowherb

I’m listening to Aukai today and have updated my writing/art page, Breathing into bloom, with new entries. Perhaps see you there.

Am I looking forward to autumn? Yes – for cooler days, autumn colour and new beginnings.

☀ K

Sunny honeys

I was planning on seeing my family today, and made the below bunch for them.

…Covid got in the way of that meet-up, so the flowers will come into our kitchen instead.

Meanwhile, teasels are beginning to bloom:

And clouds of ammi majus:

Here’s to more sunny days ahead.

🌞 K

Soft focus

I’m enjoying looking at our garden in soft focus this week – spending a little time gazing into the distance and noticing the patterns, movement and light rather than sharply looking at (or criticising) one area. It’s relaxing for the mind and helps you soak in the atmosphere instead of listing all the things that could/should change!

This afternoon I took some photographs of the back garden in an effort to document how it looks in early June.

**Rosa** **Mundi** is flowering, and the bees love her 💝

The row of roses is looking fuller this year. Here are some of them up-close:

**Rosa ‘Scepter’d Isle’** is nestled in another bed – such a beautiful rose.

Further back, this **teasel** has taken over…! And the **poppies** are still going strong.

The **geranium** I bought from Shirley at Clover Cottage last year is doing well, too.

I hope you enjoy the bank holiday weekend if you’re in the UK.

🌞 K

‘If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…

…I could walk through my garden forever.’

Placing a big pot of salvia by your window or door is a wonderful means of being able to watch bees come and go from indoors.

A geum getting to the light (it will be relocated this autumn so it sees more sunlight throughout the day).

I’ve been enjoying watching the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this week. Having caught a glimpse of the gardens on-screen, my favourites seem to be Andy Sturgeon’s Mind garden, Pollyanna Wilkinson’s Mothers for Mothers garden, and the Morris & Co garden designed by Ruth Willmott. The planting in all three gardens looks just beautiful and I love the way they have used walls, benches and metalwork to frame the trees and flowers. Have you tuned in, and if so, what are your favourite designs?

Wishing you lovely weekends,

🌞 K

Very superstitious

Today I was invited to become a wellbeing advocate at work, which took me by surprise and I was delighted. This will involve completing mental health first aid training and learning about wellbeing practices. I am also planning a ‘wellbeing wander’ for a festival that’s coming up in our organisation, which is inspired by one I followed at Anglesey Abbey a couple of years ago 🌸

Besides this, it’s a stunning afternoon here in Cambridge – breezy, sunny and quiet. An iris has bloomed for the first time in our little garden, and the roses are not far behind.

Worth the wait – **Iris ‘Superstition’** glistening in the sunlight.

Fascinating form – I took several detail shots…

…so many interesting aspects to this flower.

Meanwhile, **Papaver ‘Victoria Louise’** isn’t willing to be outshone!

**Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’** surrounds an ever-growing **teasel**…

…and in a less showy corner of the garden, **Persicaria bistorta ‘Superba’** is beginning to bloom. They are very tactile.

I can’t decide which part of **geraniums** I love more – the flowers or foliage? Leaning towards the latter today.

Wishing you an enjoyable day,

🌞 K

Things I’ve learned while creating our first garden

This weekend has been a time of reflection, so today I’m sharing 21 months-worth of things I’ve noticed, learned and loved since beginning this garden.

**Verbena hastata f. Rosea** – such a stunning perennial; last year it towered above everything else, reaching at least 7ft.

(Maybe) don’t buy one of everything
I was incredibly excited to get started, and as a beginner fell into the trap of buying a single pot of each plant I felt drawn to. While this seemed no bad thing initially, over time it led to a garden which had little patches of plants in bloom and lacked coherence. For example, if we’d planted several of the same euphorbia around the garden, when they bloomed it would make a bold impression across the space and draw the beds together; and with several plants placed in this way we’d soon form a fabric of planting, with some repetition. (That said, I don’t regret buying quite a few different plants early on, as this helped us notice which we enjoyed most, and establish what worked well together – see below).

**Rosa ‘Munstead Wood’** – a velvety wonder.

Figure out which combinations make you feel good
As I bought plants initially, I was drawn to their beautiful colours and forms online, but seeing them in the flesh – and noticing how they grow – made it much easier to gauge whether they went well together. It’s easy to move things around, and this experimentation is part of the fun! Which colours most fill you with pleasure? This year I’ve noticed that purples, pinks and vibrant greens do something good to my brain without question. Soft yellows and deep reds, too, though not together.

This **kerria japonica** is gorgeous, but I planted her in too shady a spot.

Pay close attention to where the light falls
I’ve heard Adam Frost talk about this several times on television, and can now appreciate why. We have a shady area in the garden which is dominated by a tall fence, and I’ve noticed the plants we’ve placed there tend to lurch towards where the sunlight begins, beyond the shadow. If I’d assessed the light levels before selecting these plants, I’d have opted for more shade-loving varieties! It’s well worth taking time to do this.

**Tulip ‘China Town’** – aren’t those green markings fascinating?

Don’t forget to water bulbs in pots
I planted a lot of tulips in autumn but didn’t water them until quite a bit after greenery began to form in early spring, assuming the rain would be plenty in the meantime. With very little rainfall this year in Cambridge, this led to very short tulips, and is thus something I’ll bear in mind this autumn/winter. (I’m not even sure I watered them well when planting, which is another error. Oops!)

My favourites…**forget-me-nots** and erigeron in the background.

Gardening and mindfulness go hand-in-hand
Having a garden or green space to potter around in is such a gift, and presents endless opportunities to practice mindfulness. Stopping to notice the shimmering of petals or the movement of shadows on our plants; watching the water from a hose or rain from the sky drop onto the leaves of trees or shrubs; spotting bees, butterflies and other insects steadily forming habitats in the little space we’re cultivating…it’s all wondrous. Let’s enjoy it.

Prepare to be amazed
When the above poppies first ‘popped’ last spring, I genuinely gasped upon seeing one for the first time. This may sound silly, but actually it’s a beautiful thing to experience – a genuine moment of wonder and astonishment at nature and its continual surprises. I was also amazed by the sheer scale of the cardoon we grew last year, and the teasels we’ve planted for this summer are increasingly giant, taking up a lot of space at present…! Something else I’ve been pleasantly surprised by is how easy the roses have been to take care of – even when covered in aphids they have bloomed beautifully over two summers so far.

Take note of delight
So much of gardening is about how plants make us feel. There are certain flowers which move me – roses in particular, with their exquisite forms, complex shades and often incredible scent. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this place becomes a full-on rose garden over time!) In an effort to keep note of delight, I’ve listed my favourite plants to date below. What are yours…? 😊
- Roses – especially ‘Scepter’d Isle’, ‘Boscobel’ and ‘Munstead Wood’
- Verbena bonariensis moves beautifully in the breeze, and bees love it
- Verbena hastata f. Rosea, as stated, can reach great heights (see photo below)
- Spiky purple salvias such as Salvia nemorosa Ostfriesland.
- Thalictrum flavum – tall, frothy, pale yellow flowers atop silvery foliage
- Geranium ‘Rozanne’ will flower all summer long and into autumn, and if you look closely it sparkles in the sunlight
- Achillea – pattable clouds of colour (I especially like the yellow varieties)
- Erigeron, forget-me-nots, pulmonaria and flowering thyme at the edges of beds
- Euphorbias – I’m keen to explore these further
- Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ – the cones are a bee’s paradise!
- Asters in autumn…so lovely
- Fluffy grasses of all kinds – hopefully ours will thrive this year

**Verbena hastata f. Rosea** soaring upwards last summer.

As for the future, I’m excited to see peonies, delphiniums and angelica gigas flower for the first time here. The grasses and newer thalictrum we planted last autumn will be interesting to witness taking on new growth, and we’re about to plant some Queen of the Prairie, which I’ve not seen up-close before. It’ll be good to see how those huge teasels turn out, too…

🌞 K

After the rain

I love wandering the garden after rainfall. Here are some quirky photos from today.

Forget-me-nots become snake-like as they go over.

Thyme spilling over the path as I hoped it would eventually.

Smaller than last year, these alliums are still wondrous.

A big red poppy will pop out of here soon.

🌞 K

Fumiphobia and gardening | new rainy day magic

Have you ever tried to dig up a creeping buttercup? Its roots can run surprisingly deep, sprawling out in clumps, thick and white. The more you dig, the more you find, and a fork perhaps won’t do; you’ll likely need a spade to get to the bottom, but you’ll get there in the end.

That was last week’s challenge for us here in the garden, but another obstacle I face is less simply overcome. It is fumiphobia – a phobia involving a strong fear of, or aversion to, inhaling smoke and other fumes. This is something that has become especially prevalent since Covid-19 involved worrying about breathing in the virus, or indeed giving it to a loved one inadvertently. Yet, looking back, I think this phobia has been creeping up on me since I was quite young and my siblings would smoke indoors: I felt like there was no escape from it, and would get frustrated, upset, exhausted with the situation.

If you, too, have experienced fumiphobia, I wonder how much it impacts your time spent in the garden or in outdoor spaces. Personally, it can put me off being in the garden if our neighbours are smoking or barbecuing…which actually is quite a bit of the time, in the summer months at least.

It does make me appreciate the periods in which this isn’t the case very much though 💚

Having googled this phobia and found very little, I thought I’d mention it here, as it may chime with someone now or in future. (If so, you’re not alone).

I’ve put some photos below that were taken this morning here in the garden, after a little rainfall. I love this kind of quiet, raindrop-filled time.

☔ K

A silvery-dropped Euphorbia epithymoides, *‘cushion spurge’*

Over a month earlier to bloom this year – Papaver *‘Princess Victoria Louise‘*

Bank holiday beauties

It’s a wonderfully sunny bank holiday Monday here in Cambridge, and before sorting several things out in the garden (e.g. staking and weeding), I thought I’d snap a few photos of what’s looking especially pretty.

It’s the first year in which most beds appear quite full here by early May, which is exciting. This time last year things were quite a bit smaller and separate.