My Small Suburban Garden

My Small Suburban Garden

Sunday 21 June 2015

Could Do Better...



While my North-facing front garden, which has mostly been left to Mother Nature, is currently an extravaganza of wild flowers of all shapes, sizes and fabulous colour, my South-facing back garden remains a major disappointment. While there are some nice bright Californian poppies and a couple of apparently self-seeded lobelias, most other plants are not really performing as well as I'd hoped.



The honeysuckle looks and smells gorgeous, as does the white jasmine, and the red jasmine has been constantly covered in bees (shame none of them have chosen to nest at chez moi again this year), however, the newest cherry tree has suffered terribly from black-fly and had yielded just one sad and lonely cherry, and there's also just one marigold!



Along with the buddleia, the mint, chives, rosemary and parsley are all doing ok but as for everything else...well... things can (surely?) only get better...

Friday 5 June 2015

Stormy Weather...


After thunderstorms you usually get some nice, fresh air; however today we just have that clammy feeling. I don't think that my Small Suburban Garden is enjoying the current climate either, as my aquilegia is now covered in greenfly, the cherry trees are laden with black-flies and the Miracle Gro Flower Magic seeds I lovingly scattered in the borders all those weeks ago have so far yielded a few Californian poppies and not much else.


The jasmine, both white and red, are now flowering profusely which has attracted lots of bees. Unfortunately, for the second year running not one of those little creatures seems to want to make it's next in any of my 3 carefully constructed bee hotels.


The mint and buddleia are thriving, but then again they always do. All in all, I'm not (yet) very impressed. I'm hoping that things will improve soon...