Tithonia rotundifolia Torch | Sally Wicks

So, how are your summer gardens panning out ?

As per the norm, I have grown a reasonable amount of plants from seed for my summer garden, and it all started in late March, and its now mid July.

I particularly enjoy growing plants that are skilled at self seeding. My garden is definitely not formal in its design, some might describe it as a little on the chaotic side, but believe me its taken years of planning to achieve this look. What makes my garden so special is that ever year it throws up some unplanned plant combinations. There is definitely a feeling of vegetative spontaneity, as hardy annual and perennial flower seeds have naturally found their perfect place to land, germinate, grow and eventually flower amongst the long term perennials.

And if I don’t like a self sown combination, I just weed them out.

Valeriana officinalis is a good example of a perennial I let self seed , it is so delicate and tall and has the sweetest scent. In the image below it has self seeded behind the hollyhock, which I grew from seed years years ago.

This is the same hollyhock image from 2021. it continues to be a favourite flower image.

Hollyhocks appear in various places in my garden. I leave cutting the stems back till late spring, as they provide architectural interest throughout the winter.

My garden is definitely packed full of summer loveliness. An earlier blog NEW IDEAS. talked about my intentions of how I wanted my garden to look this year. I am doing okay on the pink and purple flowers, orange is still a little lacking. The Tithonia had a miserable germination rate, and are just about hanging in there – I live in hope, as they are such fabulous orange flowers.

I generally keep my camera to hand, as you never know what flower image is waiting to be photographed. The image below of the annual Rudbeckia hirta ‘Chereokee Sunset’ was sown in March, and has leapt straight into my no1 image of the year. I could imagine this as a beautiful stain glass window, or a giant tapestry – maybe I might get round to that at some point. But in the meantime this is more than sufficient.

The Rudbeckia image was taken at http://www.wildegoosenursery.co.uk. – ,where I work in the nursery team, sowing and growing beautiful flowers, which we fill the walled garden with and also sell in the nursery. Here are a few I sowed earlier – it truly is a fabulous job.