Judges' Houses

 

 

 

 

Well howdy-doo, half way through September already and we've made it this far.  Once the X Factor elbowed itself back in centre stage and Strictly sparkled up with a launch show a lot more reminiscent of a Hunger Games style reaping than any mainstream family friendly Saturday night sofa-fest (preferred that when it was more niche BTW, before it got so carried away with itself), we know it's winter draws on and we're seeing the season producing its seed and beginning to wrap itself up and melt off into Autumn.

So feels like we've got all the way through the heats and are now at the Judges' Houses stage of our gardening year. 

Speaking of judging and this year's National Garden Competition finalists have been announced (the winner will be chosen in the next few weeks). 

Competing in any shows or competitions takes gardening to a whole new level of perfection.  No ordered chaos or shabby chic here only perfection is good enough.


But what's perfection?  Surely we all have our own ideas of what ingredients go together to produce a satisfying end product.  It could be an orderly Japanese style arrangement (doesn't do it for me), tropical or exotics, maybe a formal knot garden, a traditional cottage garden or rambling naturalistic meadow style planting.   

 

 

Check out garden competition winners.  Whatever their style, you’ll see one prevailing feature, everything’s manicured to within an inch of its life.  From the lush lawn to the delicate borders it's all been meticulously planned, prepared and maintained with military-style precision.  No weed would dare venture in and the plants are all verdant, robust and razzle dazzle cat's pyjamas. 

 

 

This I know looks a lot like a carnation or pink, but it's actually one of the last of the peony poppies.

And I really like the contrast of the unassuming fluffy ruffle of the delicate poppy against the loud and determined full on attitude of this lily.    



The reality is that by half way through September most everything is beginning to look shabby and tired and ready to call time on another year.  There's not the same enriching power in what little sunshine remains, so nothing feels encouraged to renew and bloom.  Colours are more muted and tail end veg is struggling to cling on the vines let alone ripen.

It's time to think about tidying up and collecting any seed you might want to save.  It's a good idea to use any seed you can save yourself as it preserves your precious cash resources but also because it feels right to recycle, sustain and bring renewal to your garden from within. 

Some varieties are more reliable than others.  We had a total failure with some petunias that we tried to rejuvenate from last year, while all of our bumper crop of sweet, juicy and ridiculously delicious cherry tomatoes were from our own seeds dried from 2013.

If you have a regular dead-heading routine it's a good idea to mark the stems of anything you plan to keep for later by marking the stems as we have here to discourage you from inadvertently chopping off their heads as you do your rounds. 







And with all the shops garden centres and supermarkets choc full of packets of bulbs now is also the time to decide if, what and how many bulbs to choose to kick off another year. 

Best value we've seen by the way are 40 and 50 value packs of daffs and tulips from both Tesco & ASDA @ £3.50.

So, let's make a date and talk about spring time next time.