Unlike us, plants don’t take holidays! Returning after a week away we found that our garden has moved on. Cottage gardens are forever changing, ours certainly is.
One of the joys of returning from being away is to see how things have grown back at home. We found the garden paths swamped by midsummer lushness.
Campanulas are sprawling onto the paths, see-through veils of Golden Oat Grass and feathery Stipa tenuissima grasses are giving a wispy relaxed effect. Yes, there are plenty of weeds and a lot of dead-heading to do (one of summer’s most valuable tasks), but a walk round the garden has revealed some delightful surprises of very pleasing colour combinations, some planned, others not. Here are some examples:
Mid-Summer Fullness
I love old-fashioned summer flowers like Sweet Williams, Campanulas, Lychnis, Penstemons, Salvias, Anthemis, with Foxgloves lighting up shady corners and Clematis rambling elegantly over pergola posts, while Catmint and Campanulas flop over the path edges. As in any cottage garden there is a lovely casual beauty, a heady colour mix of flowers, softened by feathery grasses. Here you’re immersed in the garden, becoming part of it. As you brush past plants petals fall on you and pollen dusts your arms with scent wafting about your face. The buzz of contented bees seems to reflect the fullness of mid-summer’s garden here. There’s a satisfying dreamy feel of joyful abundance to welcome us home.
That’s our small front cottage garden. Now come with me round to the North facing back garden with its lawn, trees and wider paths. There’s a bit more space here with a different feel, but still plenty to see.
A Thankful Gardener
“After all, what is a garden for? It is for ‘delight’, for ‘sweet solace’, for ‘the purest of all human pleasures, the greatest refreshment for the spirits of men’. It is to promote ‘jucundite of minde’, it is to ‘call home over-wearied spirits’. So say the oldest writers, and we cannot amend their words, which will stand as long as there are gardens on earth and people to love them.”
My favourite piece of garden wisdom from Gertrude Jekyll (herself a lover of cottage style gardening) quoted in her ‘A Gardener’s Testament’.
Tidy gardeners would notice the weeds, but I’m happy to let plants romp and roam creating the sense of profusion. I refuse to become a slave to the garden. It’s here for ‘the purest of all human pleasures’, a relaxed haven where there need be no frown, but contentment on all faces, both the plants’ and ours. Where better to be on a sunny day in midsummer than to be in your own peaceful garden where you can dream dreams. I want mine to be for ‘delight’ for ‘sweet solace’ to ‘call home over-wearied spirits’ and promote ‘jucundite of minde’. A garden is a healing place, such a pleasure and delight – one of God’s good gifts. Two years ago I called myself an ‘Adventurous Gardener’ and last year a ‘Contented Gardener.’ I think I’m still both of these, but also a ‘Thankful Gardener’.
Wishing you plenty of delight and pleasure in your own and in other people’s gardens this summer.
Thank you for visiting.
A Listening Heart 
How sweet to see your cottage garden…and an interestingly descriptive way to describe it! I have walked your way with letters more than once—knowing your garden will point me correctly!
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Thank you Jim. Most houses these days seem to have parking spaces instead of a front garden. We like to share our garden with passers-by. We wish you all the best as you both settle back into Arkansas. Keep in touch.
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Lovely, Richard! I wish our little weed-infested patch would take a holiday – you can’t turn your back on it for a minute without something growing. And then another one does the same thing. The little tinkers. I foresee a very busy day ahead…sometime..!
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Thank’s Mike. I hope you can allow yourself a little time off from gardening duties to enjoy plenty of the ‘purest of all human pleasures’ and ‘jucundite of minde’ from your patch! A suggestion (or an excuse?) – We’ve let part of our rear lawn grow long this year as a possible mini wildflower meadow. It looks promising !
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Wonderful. I can see how you would find “sweet solace” here.
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Exactly. No doubt you can find in your garden too.
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You have such a beautiful garden. A garden where nature can thrive.
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Thank you. With all the flowers here insect life is plentiful. Hopefully our hedgehog is doing mollusc control for us! I don’t use chemical sprays in this garden..
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Thank you for sharing your lovely cottage garden with us, Richard. My favourite gardens are those that let the flowers be as exhuberant as they want and spill over lawns and paths. I love gardens that follow no trends but show somerhing of the heart and soul of the gardener, as yours does.
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A lovely comment Clare. Thank you. I think exuberance sums up our garden well. The plants seem to love it, so do we. May your garden do the same for you this summer.
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Thank you, Richard.
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“Where better to be on a sunny day in midsummer than to be in your own peaceful garden where you can dream dreams” – this post spoke so clearly to me, Richard. The scenes are your garden are delightful but your thoughts about gardening were just as moving. Thank you for sharing your garden and your heart.
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A kind comment Lynn. Thank you for sharing your garden too. Gardening is a joy to be shared.
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Indeed 😊
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Wow. Gorgeous. And I like the way you say that: “Returning after a week away we found that our garden has moved on.” They have a way of doing that, don’t they?
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Yes they do and it’s sometimes had to keep up with them. But that’s the pleasure of a garden with always something new to notice and enjoy.
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