Summer sunshine....

...and showers....in Molokoloko Garden this week.

Rudbekia and lavender

Sunshine and showers make vegetables and flowers....

This week I showed Leah that you can pick up a bumble bee if you are gentle.   We found one that was crawling laboriously along the patio paving.  I think he had run out of 'juice' and needed a drink.   So I put my finger gently in front of him, when he had climbed on I took him to a bush where there were flowers aplenty to find a drink.   They can sting.   Usually they don't if you are gentle, they are very placid bees.   I love them.  Bees are becoming more and more scarce we need to treasure all our bees.

Mine are loving the meadow.   The clover is out, it is a real larder for them.  So are the lavender and the  alliums in full bloom now.

I got very excited yesterday when I discovered the Passiflora had its first blossom.   I only planted the vine this season.   It has clambered up the one side of the arch loving where I have placed it.

Passiflora bloom

The other side of the arch has the Bridge of Sighs orangy-yellow climbing rose.   That has done so well  too, but its growth pattern is different to that of the Passiflora so I expect it will be next year before I see an abundance of purple passiflora and yellow roses entwined.

July is the month the harvest starts in earnest.   I am eating home grown cucumbers, beans, potatoes.

Still to come are the currants, red and black, the butternut, the courgettes are disappointing, tomatoes are looking good at the moment...and see how the sweetcorn is tassling up.

Poppies among the sweetcorn.

Here is one close up...

Baby sweetcorn growing up

I experimented with a bit of mixed planting.   I think I planted potatoes too close to the apple tree.   Apparently they don't do well if too close to each other.   The potatoes are fine, but I think I didn't get as high a yield as I might have if I'd not planted so close to the apple tree.   The apples are almost non-existent this year.   Possibly because the potatoes are too close?   Maybe because winter was so mild.   Some fruit trees like a hard frost to fruit well, plums and cherries do I think.   Maybe apples do too.  Maybe the tree is sick, some of the leaves are a bit rusty.   I'll have to check it out.

This week I have been busy feeding everything in pots.   Trying to get things as easy as possible for G to water while I am away next week for a week.  So I took cut stuff to the tip, put Rose Clear on the roses, some of them have bad black spot and staked and tied up other plants that may blow or fall over.

The ox-blood red clematis is really flowering well this year.  Some things are amazing some disappointing - that is how gardening is.

I don't tell you all about my failures....I have plenty.  But I thought I would just say that I do have failures, and mistakes, more than the successes.   I think most self-taught gardeners do....and I have a special message for Sally...really just go out there and try.   I know there is complicated science behind gardening but most of us just stick things in the ground and learn by trying.   If you can find out what conditions the plants/seeds/cuttings prefer you will be onto a success story.  One word of warning...gardening is addictive.  The good news is the side effects are mostly very pleasant...ignore aching back, sunburn and permanently black fingernails...

Fuchsia

Now I am off to Sweden next week...A-K, the Hibiscus cutting you grew and gave me to smuggle back last year is triple its size and full of buds.   I am so looking forward to seeing your garden and as many others as possible!

Chat to you again on my return and thank you G, in advance, for looking after my garden while I am away, and JP too!

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise. ~Michael P. Garofalo

Other peoples' gardens....

...and mine...

A 71-year old Swansea pensioner built this in his garden.
Magnificent 

All I can say is...don't under-estimate the pensioners.   They are a mighty clever bunch of people!  Look at the Flower-Tower built by a retired steel worker in his garden.   He says he will make the next one bigger, this is 30 feet high (about 10 metres).

That's not all.   This weekend I returned to Dorset for a special birthday celebration.   In the cul-de-sac where I lived for so many years one of my former neighbours had entered their garden in the Open Gardens week which is held for different Charities.  Well, let's call my friends Mr and Mrs H because I don't want to invade their privacy although I did ask for their permission to put in a bit about their garden.  They are two lovely pensioners (like me but a touch older) who look after their lively grandsons during the working days of the week.   Their time is busy as the children are not a lot older than Leah and Jonah...and this is a tiny bit of what they have in their back garden...not to mention a pretty much self sufficient vegetable patch and orchard...AND a tiny, but very real, JUNGLE

The paving is reclaimed slabs, the containers, many of them are old dustbins.
This is the back patio.

It deserves an award.
Most of these are grown from their own seed, cuttings, bulbs
and the postage-only posti-plugs from T & M

There are hidden corners, water trickling into a living pond,
paths through the jungle, quiet seats, nooks, crannies all full  of
food, interest and colour

Mr and Mrs H are just regular people who have worked hard all their lives.   They have always kept a connection with the ground.   Mr H is a skilled builder so many of the structures are made from reclaimed and throw -aways stuff from others is put to good and original use in the garden.   He knows a lot about splitting plants, taking seeds...he planted out 600 tiny marigolds, seed gathered from 2013 plants in their garden and saved.   He knows how to organically protect against pests.   Mrs H is the fuchsia lady and hers make mine look like half-starved orphans...

Their knowledge comes from years of dirt-under-the-fingernails live-living interaction with the good old ground - and need to supply the table and vases!   WOW...DOUBLE-WOW..

I am both inspired and humbled.  I salute you Mr and Mrs H.

In fact I hardly want to show you my garden pictures this week.   I have to keep reminding myself that Mr and Mrs H have had years to establish their paradise while mine is merely in its 3rd year and doing well...doing well enough.  One thing Mr and Mrs H taught me a lot in half an hour chatting to them in their garden...and I shall use the new knowledge.   Marigolds, little French Marigolds seem to keep flying pests (green fly, white fly) at bay.   I shall exult the humble marigold and grow a couple in the greenhouse to keep the flying pests out of there too...

First bloom on Yew Tree House rose cutting taken last summer.

Lacy hydrangea from a cutting taken from Janet and Mum's garden

I don't know its name,
it is a Fuchsia and came as a tiny plug plant
What a lovely surprise when it bloomed

One of the baskets I made up
I thought it was good till I saw Mrs H's!

A dwarf Agapantha of stunning blue,
Reminds me of South Africa,
The bulb was a gift - this is its first season.

There are cucumbers forming on the vines in my garden, beans coming, potatoes, butternut, sweetcorn, tomatoes as well as black and red currants, rhubarb, there might even be a tiny bunch of grapes on one vine this year...

But oh...how far, far short this garden falls of Mr and Mrs H's garden....give me time Lord, and give me strength too please...together we'll get there Garden and I.

In the pink...

...in the garden and out on the dunes...

Pink Mallow or Lavetera - an annual, in my garden.
Seed planted by Leah.

Hot sizzling summer pink is the colour of the week....the colour of the beginning of JULY

Wild Mallow on the Dunes

Hello JULY...how nice to see you.  Especially as you brought the shorts-and-T-shirt weather.

What should we be thinking about this month...what I mean is ...what little jobs should we consider doing this sunny month when the bees and butterflies visit us?   It is tempting to not do anything much except water  when it is needed, eat what is ready and enjoy the sounds, scents and sensations of summer in the garden.

One of the worst mistakes you can make as a gardener is to think you're in charge. ~Janet Gillespie

It is important to dead-head blooms that are spent.   Mostly this is a pleasant job that can be done at any odd moment.   It encourages more flowers and fruit too.   I'm enjoying sugar-snap peas , I'll plant them again next year they really do well and add that extra sweet snap to my lunchtime salad.  Strawberries are another bonus in the garden now too.

So more about JULY in the PINK.

I spent all afternoon, pulling and planting and hacking.   There are now about 10 bags of pulled, pruned, hacked bits of plants to take to the tip tomorrow.

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

And many things that were sown there need a bit of taming at this time of year.   Yes, even in a wild-garden such as mine.

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. ~Author Unknown

That quote is absolutely the truth.   Nevertheless....

....It is definitely a wonderful time of year, everything is just romping away.   The rain overnight encouraged things to look fresh this morning...and encouraged me to make the most of it while the ground is a bit softer than of late.

Very pink hydrangea brighten a shady corner.

It really did make the garden look fresh.   Also it smells beautiful too.

A delicate salmon pink begonia

It was then that I realised how many pink blossoms are making their début appearance this month.

Perennial Mallow from Judith - needs a little prop I think.

There was pink everywhere I looked from the hanging baskets

Verbena

And the pots

Pink Fuchsia with white Petunia.

And this pink theme was not just limited to the garden because now is when the Rose Bay Willow is looking splendid too.

Rose Bay Willow Herb in the Bracken on the Dunes.

So that's why I say that July is a month in the PINK!

Hot PINK petunias in a basket have to be the pinkest of them all.

But just as you might be thinking that PINK is the only colour in my garden let me show you that is is not so.

Hot sizzling ORANGE Day Lily

If there is any colour combination that shouts summer it has to be the clash of PINK and ORANGE.

Bridge of Sighs Rose

This rose is growing up one side of the arch and on the other side is a Passionflower which will be white and purple.   It is not quite in bloom yet, I am hoping it will bloom before the yellow roses are over.

Another little débutante blossom this year is the yellow jasmine.   Yellow Jasmine is much much sweeter smelling than the white.

Yellow Jasmine.

  I'm very happy to see this one in bloom.   The yellow honeysuckle is also in bloom on the opposite wall.

Yellow Honeysuckle

Probably the most yellow of all the yellows is the first little sunflower that opened it's face to the sun today

Sunflower shouts of sunshine and of summer

So by now you should be feeling very summery and cheerful.  There is only one problem...I haven't done any housework all week.   Not any other than the absolute essential, make bed and wash up!

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown

We really have had hardly any rain for a few weeks now.  Certainly last night was the first real rain in a long time but it had gone by this morning...so the housework didn't get done ....

Let me leave you there...I am sure there will be more colour and more garden news in a few days.   But right now....

I need to shower and get a bit of this wonderful garden dirt off me!

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

I do, I really do!