My Garden Journal 2024 August

I began my August entries in my Garden Journal 2024 by writing, “August, according to our childhood memories of the 1950’s, is a month of permanent sunshine, pure blue skies and calm days. This year such days mingle with dark grey, but the garden is so colourful it makes up for it.”

I then share a set of pictures of colourful patches in the garden.

On the page opposite our Crocosmias I wrote, “May is the month when most of our Alliums are in flower enhancing the garden with so many shades of purple, but their flower heads are fascinating through the rest of summer and on into autumn and winter. I have drawn a flowerhead as its seedheads are developing and still green. Not all of the flowers were pollinated however.”

On the next double page spread I shared gardening jobs for the month of August and looked at some of our many colourful sedums.

I noted that, “In the summer many garden jobs need doing almost daily such as deadheading and tying in climbers. Others are done less frequently but regularly such as brushing up the drive edges . Hedge cutting happens once a year, a job we leave to Ian.”

Now for a look at some of our sedums about which I wrote, “We grow so many different types of sedum and we chose them for the different flower colour and foliage colour and shape. Below are just a few of our many sedum.”

The final two pages are all about wildlife and phlox.

When looking at some of our insect friends I began by writing, “As we sat enjoying a coffee at the big table in the ‘Secret Garden’ we were entertained by bird calls. Our local Jackdaw flock, known as a ‘clattering’, regularly gave us a noisy flyby. Smaller flocks of starlings joined in on occasion. A swooping ‘gulp’ of swallows appeared for the first time in weeks,’ possibly a group from further north taking a well-deserved rest break. All around us insects explored flowering plants.”

Green Shield Bug eggs and youngster (left) adult (right) Palomena prasina.

Left: Pimpla rufipes ichneuma Right: European Potter Wasp

Anciotroclerus gazell

Opposite the wildlife little bugs I focussed on phlox and wrote, “We have been gardening together now for over 5 decades and until 2 years ago we refused to grow phlox. We both disliked them but slowly we started adding them to some of our borders as we both totally changed our minds about them.”