Family, flowers and fun in the sun

 Here are some of my favourite views around the nursery at the moment. We have lots of colourful corners in the gardens but sometimes I like to take a moment to enjoy and celebrate the more subtle, foliage based and understated parts of the garden. I love flowers but I also love foliage, it adds so much texture, form, colour and variety to a garden, on its own or in partnership with flowers or as a back drop. The unsung heros that bring the garden together quietly getting on with it while the colourful divas get all the attention. Subtle colour combinations that produce a wow factor like the Asperula and copper beach or all the large leaved perennials with the pop of yellow ligularia in amongst them.

Enjoying our garden over the past couple weeks

As we approach living in our wee cottage for 4 years its hard to believe the front garden is only 3 years old. I am still tweaking it as it grows but I love all the colours and it is always full of bees

Rustle, rustle, rustle, silence, Rustle, rustle, rustle, silence, Rustle, rustle, rustle, silence

Squirrel paused his searching, stood up and scratched his head.

He was sure he’s buried the hazel nuts here last autumn.

We have Dan staying for the weekend so he and David can do some railway fixing in the nursery. Also a good excuse to go out and celebrate Dan's birthday which was last week. Another great meal in Asaudo Gaucho in Peebles then home to enjoy the warm evening in the garden

Bit late this evening but we've been enjoying pizza in the garden and catching up with eldest Ben and fiancé Cheryl.

This week it's David's turn to recommend plants he likes in the sales area. Given the hot weather and that we'd rather be paddling in cool water than wearing our heavy safety boots he's gone for some of the excellent pond and marginal plants we have for sale in our water plant area.

~ Darmera peltata AGM - Pink and white flowers emerge in spring on a long stalk directly from a stout rhizome, and then come the great umbrella-shaped leaves to 30cm across on single stems. Enjoys consistently moist to boggy soil and turns spectacular colours ranging from bronze to scarlet in October. Looks amazing in dappled shade with other equally architectural big leaved plants. H 90cm, S 200cm.

~ Juncus effusus f spiralis - An evergreen rush with curious cork-screw like spiral growth forming a bushy clump which thrives in damp to wet soil. Ideal for boggy ground or the margins of ponds. Insignificant flowers appear in summer. Can also be grown in a pot. H 30cm, S 30cm.

~ Myosotis scorpioides – Water forget -me-nots have the same tiny blue flowers with a white or yellow-eyed flowers in early summer as the usual forget-me-not. Ideal for beside or partial in water in ponds or streams. A second flush of flowers will freely appear if you cut back old flowers. H 30cm, S 30cm.

~ Equisetum hyemale - This is a British native species and makes an unusual marginal plant. It is quite striking with its sturdy vertical stems ringed with black bands, resembling bamboo. It is evergreen even in the hardest weather and useful for giving winter interest to the pond. It spreads by underground stems, but unlike its weedy garden cousins, it is slow-growing and will not take over the pond. H 90cm, S 90cm.

~Waterlilies – these come in all sorts of colours from white, to yellow, to pink, red and very dark purple. They also prefer different depths so its vital to know the depth of your pond so you can choose the correct lily. Perfect for covering the water surface to reduce algae and give fish and wildlife cover to hide and from the heat of the sun.

Behind the scenes this week and half way through July already! We’ve gone from below average temperatures where there were almost winter layer type clothing looked out to more ridiculously high temperatures. I am so glad we don’t have the kind of highs as down south, I’d definitely be a puddle on the floor. This week I have got more alpines propagated in tunnel 1 ready for next year, yes we do work that far ahead, sometimes more for slower growing plants, anything up to two years in advance is not unusual. There has been a lot of seedlings appearing in the garden from a huge variety of our plants which is great as we can pot these up for selling next year and it cuts out two parts of the process, seed collecting and then sowing and then potting up from seed pans. This gives us much more time to do other things and the plants generally are stronger too, win win for us and our customers.

I’ve more or less emptied tunnel 4 of the plants waiting to be potted, they will dry out less outside especially as on the hotter days even with the doors open temps are reaching near 50C!!! If it does ever rain they will get watered naturally and hopefully in a couple of weeks we can start potting them up. The shrub stock beds have also been tidied and if you saw our lonely plant club post earlier in the week there are a few one offs looking for their forever home. Work continues in the main stock beds as I work through G for geranium and geum, goodness we have a lot, but they are tough, reliable and sell well (and we love them too).

Fiona was in on Saturday potting up seedlings and cuttings, more stock next year, the cuttings were only taken a couple of months ago and are already big enough for potting on. David and Dan spent the weekend fixing and changing some bits of the nursery railway, the new diaram next to the station looks great and something new for visitors who come to see the railway. We are all missing Isabel who is away home for a few weeks, but never fear there will be plenty potting when you get back :D

We have enjoyed seeing all the butterflies, bees and insects in the nursery including this week a hummingbird moth and an Elephant Hawk moth. Froglets are everywhere and the voles continue to take the £$&@.

We’ve started another renovation project in the cottage, its been a while………recovering from the cost of replacing the flat roof on the 60’s extension and replacing the bathroom last year and trying to save up to replace the whole slate roof on the main part of the cottage (ouch), gut and re-do the kitchen (there are undocumented civilisations living in it currently) and the windows on the front of the house need replaced :/ so renovating the original back doors is a fairly (ha ha) straight forward and supposedly not too expensive project (aye right). They look fine in the photo but the paint is badly flaking, there are dents and holes, layers of  gunk, a lock not working, so it is time to get them back to their former railway worker cottage glory, loving that we went for the dark blue, its fabulous 😊

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