Whilst driving over to Martin and Judy’s garden today, my thoughts turned to what I would see , and how it would make me feel when I opened the gate ? Being honest, I already knew the garden would look verdant and floriferous . Not that I am bigging this garden up , but it really is a very special place , where I like to spend time . I do have to remind myself , that my job as the gardener , is to keep care for it ( as if it were my own garden) and keep on making it even more glorious for Martin and Judy .

Martin and Judy were not at home when I arrived, so I had the garden all to myself , apart from the numerous sparrows, blackbirds, garden insects and bees. I spent the first five minutes, just sitting down to take it all in. Later in the day , when Judy asked “ how do you think the garden is looking” my reply was “pretty damn perfect “ and hopefully the following images portray this .

Every year, I have a competition ( with myself ) for best image of the year, this is my favourite image of the year so far.

If this is the first time you have come across my blog, why not check out the following link which documents, the very short history of Martin and Judy’s new garden.

After two years of letting the top soil seed bank germinate, I now know which self seeding plants are too vigorous and have the capacity to swamp out the more delicate perennials in the process. With this in mind, I spent my time today removing black medic, creeping buttercups and docs. In addition to this , I really like the elegant leaf shape and flower heads of narrow leaf plantain, but they to are almost becoming pernicious, due to their capacity to self seed – so some had to come out . In relation to this, and hopefully as a point of interest, a couple of months ago I was interviewed by Garden Master Class as part of their Thursday chat series. I talked about my five favourite plants, and plantain was a serious contender . The following link is about the five plants, favourite gardening tool and book which I spoke about
Garden Master Class, Thursday chat . A blog in preparation for. The link to the interview can be found on the Garden Masterclass website. http://www.garden master class.org

The following images, are plants that needed to be removed today ( some in greater quantity than others ) owing to their pernicious habit .

Plantain
Black medic
creeping buttercup
Canadian Fleabane needed removing. I am perfectly happy with Verbena bonariensis self seeding all over the place though.
Black medic

In true form today , my Panasonic lumix camera ran out of battery and my iPhone was unable to take any more images , due to being full. So because of this , there are no images of the tree seedlings which I came across today in the back garden – mainly Silver birch and Rowan. I will be potting them up in the autumn, and grow them on for our next project, which will be the new woodland garden at the front of the house . I really like the fact, that we will eventually plant up and create the front garden from tree seeds which had germinated from the woodland which surrounds the back garden.

Enjoy your summer gardens, and watch out for those seedlings, whether they are pernicious, and need removing . Or need cultivating for your next design project .