Wishing summer farewell
- The Gardener
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
There is a real sense this week that the seasons are changing. After weeks of daily blue sky, light winds and crisply-parched lawns, some light rain from battleship skies has brought me inside. It feels different and curiously unsettling. Much rain is forecast over the next couple of weeks and I shall have to exercise patience in working around the weather.
But it has been a wonderful August, the predominant soundtrack being of rumbling combines working round the clock to bring in their crops, several weeks earlier than usual. And, in the mornings, the excited chirping of a second brood of newly fledged house martins, enthusiastically trying out their wings with a show of acrobatic brilliance.
Butterfly populations have continued to grow. I don’t believe the garden has hosted such a large population for many a year, and it’s really heartening to see them feeding on plants that we’ve grown from seed or from cuttings. One day I encountered a ‘string’ of no less than 7 whites, all flying in synchrony as if they were connected by a wire. I’ve never seen that before in Scotland.
And we’ve been bathed in that characteristic soft August sunlight enhancing the buff-brown harvested fields and the warm tartan purple of the nearby heather moors. August is truly a beautiful month. And a warm one too this year. In the east of Scotland, temperatures in the late afternoon usually fall away, leaving a cool evening. And yet, on August 13th, at 6pm, we had a reading of 27C. Most unusual.
With it being so dry, cosmos and dahlia Bishops Children have been shy to flower, despite a number of trips with the watering can. With the rains returning, September might yet be their month, though, as both should flower up to the frosts. Most herbaceous have coped quite well, with one or two exceptions but they will recover with a shower or two. The agapanthus have been magnificent, with some blooms still looking quite presentable so late in the summer. This year, we elected to spread them around the garden. All were placed to benefit from at least half a day’s direct sunshine - for some, it’s morning light and others - evening, and this appears to have spread the flowering period out for longer.
And I don’t think I’ve been quite so aware of scent as this August, as the lilies too have been formidable. We have a few varieties in our cutting bed and Mount Cook and Stargazer in particular have filled the air in the south-east corner of the Old Orchard. I had feared that lily beetle would be a problem this year, but, as it turned out, all our lilies bloomed really well including the tree lilies in the Drying Green Garden and the earlier Turk’s Caps in the Summerhouse Garden.
For the gardener, it’s been a relatively quiet month. The grass, once again, stopped growing as did many of the weeds. Watering, including spraying the tree ferns, has been the order of the day. While we don’t cut the yew and beech hedges until September and October, we have been trimming the box, trying to find dry days without sun on which to do it. Not so easy this year.
Under the two ancient sycamores at the foot of The Slope, the location of our tree collection, we’ve been strimming the long grass where the Pheasant’s Eye narcissi delighted visitors back in May. Much later this year, as the seedheads have stayed upright for longer and, until recently, looked wonderful backlit by the warm-toned shafts of late afternoon sun. Ever scrambling to hold onto summer for as long as possible, I’m trying to resist strimming down the rest of the long grass around the south and west lawns but it will need to be done at some point before the equinoctial storms flatten it. Leaving long grass in place over the winter doesn’t give a good ‘look’ in the spring, with white patches of thatch sapping new grass growth underneath. The meadow too continues to look wonderful. Less volume and perhaps height than last year but much more upright, biscuit-coloured seedheads sharply defined in those wonderful evening sun-shafts.
Perhaps surprisingly, given all the drought and the fact that we don’t water them, the compost bins have been working well, their heat reducing a lot of the fresh contents to ash. We’ve been adding in last year’s partly-rotted fallen leaves to the more mature bin, and it’s amazing how much the levels drop, particularly after turning the contents. We’ll have some lovely material to top up the raised beds and reward the roses!
With fewer gardening tasks on the to-do list, it’s been a month of DIY, including the greenhouse where we’ve been carrying out some minor repairs, puttying windows and touching up the paintwork. We’ve moved to biannual checks of this trusty old friend - outside in August, inside in February, meaning fewer, less invasive repairs.
And finally, the Eucryphia - truly August in plant form, has done its thing, just one or two late blooms remaining on this marvellous tree which, for much of the month, has been a mass of dainty white blooms, gently buzzing during daylight hours with honey- and bumble bees and animated with butterflies of all shades. The swansong of a most memorable summer.
