It has mainly been wet, wild and windy here in Shropshire today , with the vast majority of my garden plants swaying all over the place.

As you can see, my garden is relatively small, however, whatever the size of your chosen plot – why not make your future planting choices a selection of tall, airy and sturdy perennial plants ? They really will add dynamism and sound on a breezy day. A great independent nursery to check out with regard to this is www.wildegoosenursery.co.uk , where we propagate and sell many incredibly tall and beautiful perennials.

My garden today.

Sphaeralcea incana ‘Sourup’ in its vertical form….
and then the breeze knocked it sideways.
Helenium and Bistort
Tithonia rotundifolia ‘The Torch’
Agastache aurantiaca ‘Navajo Sunset’ from seed last year, it has been flowering really well for the last 6 weeks.
This Inula helenium elecampagne comes in at over 2 metre. I have staked this one..
Self seeded Scotch thistle against a summer sky – I think I might make a lino cut of this at some point . This one is over 2 metres.

It is true to say, I am really happy with how my garden is looking this year, which has enabled me to really focus on another project – our 1 acre orchard.

Over the last 5 weekends with help from two of my friends (Theresa and Treasa ) we have removed nettles that were swamping the trees, and cut pathways to enable us to walk through the orchard. I cannot believe how much we have done, in such a short space of time, and I am really enjoying this new project. We have also come across slow worms, which is really quite exciting .

This year I have been mowing and strimming to work my way through the orchard – I am planning to invest in a scythe, so that in following years my use of petrol for the mower and plastic strimmer string will reduce . Theresa prefers to use a long handled Darlac sickle for cutting back the nettles and brambles. This sickle is sharp and robust, and really affordable, and as I type this, I am thinking that the next thing I need to do is buy one.

We have now mulched the nettles out from nearly all the fruit trees ( by putting cardboard down) This has worked really well, and only very few nettles have re-emerged, so we are now putting a second layer down. Any long grass we strim goes back on top of the cardboard.

Next year I will be cutting and removing the grass, as I want to lower the fertility of the soil, to enable me to think about creating a wildflower meadow. This is definitely a very long term project, which I am finding entirely fascinating.

These images are from last weekend.

pathways have been mown in .
cardboard acts as a good mulch against nettles.
A Shropshire prune , now deplete of nettles, and replete with fruit.
Several of my school friends came over , so we glamped .