My garden in June

Phew, it’s been scorching hot here in Glasgow!  About 25C / 77F for the past few days.  Honestly, this feels almost unbearably hot to us at times.  The garden has been happy, but before I show you that, the Dafter has also been continuing to do very well.  Here is a silly photo of her at Whole Foods.  The first time we went there she said, “It’s just like Oregon!”  And so it is.

Silly Dafter! 18 June 2014.

Isn’t her dress fab?  She found it at a vintage shop in the West End, for a song.  Note her face now has some colour!  Here’s her usual expression:

Pretty Dafter!

She continues to make good progress with her ME/CFS, which is a delight after nearly three years of her being so very ill.

Now to show you the garden!  It amazes me to think that the plants have only been in it since February.

Back garden: the sunny border. Glasgow, 17 June 2014.

I bought quite a few bedding plants this summer, as the perennials are still just babies.  I know that in a few years there won’t be so much bare soil.

Birch bark cherry tree, foxgloves, pincushion flower, canterbury bells, volunteer poppies. My back garden, Glasgow, 17 June 2014.

I really like the Quaking Grass:

Quaking grass by the summerhouse, Glasgow 19 June 2014.

We’ve bought some solar lights to make it even more enchanting in the evenings, though so close to the solstice it’s still not dark by 11 pm in this clear weather.

Looking towards the house, 19 June 2014.  Poppies and nigella grown from seed in the small curved bed.

I’m delighted that the two peonies I planted in February have had blooms:

“Bowl of Beauty” peony, blooming in its first year here.  Next to it is a clove-scented carnation.

First bloom on the “Kansas” peony.

Why Kansas?  Because I like its colour and shape, but also my great-granny May was born in Kansas.  In the other border, a plant that I thought I knew from the church garden in Aberdeen has grown to ten times the size I expected:

The shady bed, with huge Anthemis “Tinpenny Sparkle”. 17 June 2014.  Next year I will stake it!

I’ve sown wildflower seeds here.  (Karen, can you identify the seedlings for me?  Sweet william? Forget-me-not?  Time will tell!)

I planted eight bare-root roses in the depths of winter, and they all seem to be happy.  They are all climbing roses – three in the front and five in the back.  In the front garden, two are in bloom.

First blooms on the climbing rose “Graham Thomas”, front garden, 18 June 2014.

I really love canterbury bells and foxgloves, which I had in Aberdeen.   In the evening they seem to glow from within, especially the light blue ones:

“Cornish Blue” canterbury bells in front, white canterbury bells beyond, and purple ones in back. Front garden, 18 June 2014.

Here is the other climbing rose in bloom in front, the deliciously scented Gertrude Jekyll (which I had in Aberdeen and blogged about here):

Climbing rose “Gertrude Jekyll” in my front garden, 18 June 2014.

Such a lot of happiness and pleasure!  And this garden is all ours, after 21 years of shared gardens in Aberdeen.  Working here is a solace, though some of the jobs to be done are a bit weird.  Yesterday Michael and I “planted” 100 worms from Yorkshire in the flower beds in the back, as the new soil there seems devoid of worms and is very clay-ey.  The postie didn’t exactly drop the box when I said, “Oh, our worms have arrived!”  Yes, that was a little bit naughty of me…