Moving into the second half of the year the garden continues to flourish despite the crazy weather extremes which are coming our way almost on a daily basis. After starting with bright days alternating with wet days, high temperatures have been the biggest factor controlling our gardening activities as some days we have only been able to garden in the evenings.
On the first page I wrote, “With the coming of July we move into the second half of the year. Confused weather was the pattern for the first week with alternating bright days and wet days. I began the new month by trying out a new way of air-layering, a propagation technique that has always fascinated me.”
From top left along the top row of photos we have “The tools of the trade”, “Both halves of the sphere are filled with damp sphagnum moss” and “A propagating knife notches the branch.”
The words for the two photos above say, “The two halves of he sphere are clipped together.”
On the opposite page I wrote, “There were plenty more jobs to be getting on with during the month.”
We bought lots of plants for redeveloping parts of borders, I pruned the vine, took lots of succulent cuttings and Ian, our garden help pruned the Malus “Butterball” working largely from the inside!”
Over the following couple of pages I featured climbers that we grow in our garden and which flower in July. I wrote, “Our climbers have come to the fore this July especially the roses and clematis, which are so floriferous and vigorous.”
I then shared eight photos of climbing and rambling roses, “Bobby James”, “Summer Wine” and “Enchantress” in the first batch, followed by “Warm Welcome” and “Mutabilis Odorata”.
The clematis above are “Durandii”, “Comptesse de Bouchard” and “The President”.
On the top of the next page I wrote, “But there are plenty of other climbers flowering away in July, honeysuckles, jasmines and eccremocarpus, even a climbing fuschia and Hydrangea petiolaris.” I also shared six other photos of these climbers.
I featured a sketch of our front garden looking towards our Shrub Garden. I used watercolours and Japanese Brush Pens.
Another colourful page sat opposite where I shared photos of a selection of our many hemerocallis, Day Lilies. I wrote, “As we move into the second half of July, our hemerocallis, Day Lilies, add rich colours to all our borders.”
I shared a batch of nine photos of our hemerocallis to illustrate the wide varieties of colours we have.
The next page features two other types of lily, Martagons and Asiatics, where I noted, “More colour was provided by two types of true lily, both martagons and asiatics, in the front garden.”
The first set of photos are of martagons while the second set are asiatics.
The final page shows an i-Pad sketch I created to show the view looking up through the planting on our roof garden atop our woodstore.
greenbenchramblings 
2 replies on “My Garden Journal 2021 July”
You certainly are keeping yourselves busy, and everything looks lush and beautiful. New plants? Oh, my, what gardener doesn’t love new plants and the idea of change. Happy gardening.
What an exciting month you have had! The air layering technique is interesting. I’m as excited as you must have been to see all those new plants you brought in. I haven’t been to a garden center in over two years now and may have to do something about that! Lovely sketches. Take care.