The June Cutting garden : Cornflowers and Corncockle

Well we’ve had all sorts of weather since I last wrote, a heatwave at the end of May which ended with a really big thunderstorm with torrential rain and then wet and windy the week after, a challenging time for the garden. After a busy May I had a few days off from work to have a bit of a breather, which happened to coincide with the hottest May days on record. This was perfect as I was so tired and had a bit of a post-Chelsea cold so I was happy to just sit in the shade in the garden and just read and relax for a couple of days. I don’t get to do that very often so was a bit of a treat, it was too hot to do any gardening in the daytime, but I was watering in the evenings. I was up early too to do some gardening before it got too hot. Plus with Martin being off too we took the opportunity and the weather to repaint the potting shed after its new roof last year and that looks nice and shiny again. We have been living here for 7 years now and I’m finally feeling like I’m getting my garden how I want it.

Obviously a garden is never finished but I think the overall structure is there now, the final shapes of the beds and lawn. I bought a lot of plants here from my previous garden and allotment and many have been sitting in some raised beds waiting for their final homes. Last August we had a new garden room installed to replace a concrete garage which had been a bit of an eyesore and we had some paving in front and a new border emerged. I have tried to properly plan this including lots of planting from elsewhere in the garden and have made homes or given away all the plants that were sitting in the raised beds. So now my proper cutting garden has emerged and these will be used for annuals and biennials. I posted a few photos on Instagram if you want to have a look. So some of the beds contain some autumn sown annuals and biennials and are bursting with colour and others are newly planted with half-hardy annuals. So this part of the garden is very functional with the greenhouse, potting shed and raised beds all together.

So what else have I been up to, well in the cutting garden my main aim in early June is to get all the annuals planted, they’ll cope much better in the ground than in small pots if the weather gets too hot. So my Ranunculus came out of the raised beds (I’m keeping them and drying to use again next year, they are sat on racks on shelves in my greenhouse) and that gave me a bit of space, so I’ve planted my Zinnias. The warm weather encouraged me to get them in but since then its been cool and wet, aargh. I keep trying with Zinnias but they can be tricky up here in the north of England as they need it sunny and warm. They are also slug magnets so I’m keeping a close eye on them, especially as its now gone wet and cool, perfect slug weather. I’ve kept back a few spares in case they get ravaged. Its due to get a warmer and drier so fingers crossed. I’ve planted lots of Cosmos, many this year in my borders which is new for me. I’m also trying some in containers. Sunflowers, Nicotiana and Rudbeckias are going in now too. I’m keeping some of all of these back and potting on into bigger pots for planting out in the garden after my autumn sown annuals like Cornflower, Corncockle, Candytuft and Orlaya have finished. I’ve also planted some Statice/Limonium and Didiscus. Annual phlox have gone in containers mostly at the base of the Dahlias and in some troughs with Cosmos.

I wrote a blog in April about pinching out and I just wanted to show you some of the Cosmos that I was planting out with lovely branching stems, just to show you that it can really make a big difference.

Its a great time for picking flowers now with lots of biennials still flowering well and others starting like the Sweet William. The autumn sown annuals like Cornflowers and Corncockle are starting to flower now and I’m picking from those regularly and the Orlaya and Candytuft are making a beautiful combination along with Cerinthe, Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’ and Omphalodes linifolia in one of my raised beds you can see them in the photo above.

This was one of my favourite arrangements this month, featuring Cornflower ‘Black Ball’ and Sweet William ‘Nigricans’, along with Bupleurum ‘Bronze Beauty’, Alchemilla mollis, Polemonium pauciflorum and Physocarpus ‘Amber Jubilee’.

Just loving the Corncockle ‘Queen’ with its bigger flowers.

 

Likes mingling in an arrangement with Candytuft ‘Crown’, Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, Orlaya grandiflora, Sweet William ‘Alba’ and Hesperis White.

The Candytuft has been fantastic with nice long stems and a good range of colours from pale pink almost white, pink and lilac, this was sown in the autumn and seems pretty tough.

The paler flowers of the Candytuft go nicely with Astrantia ‘Buckland’, Cerinthe, my double flowered Feverfew and Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’, one of my favourite long-lasting filler flowers.

Finally made first picking of Canterbury bells, I have a lot of the really deep purple which looks great with Alchemilla mollis and Silene vulgaris.

Plus I sowed my biennials last weekend, first to germinate were the wallflowers so hopefully they will come on nicely. There is still plenty of time to sow, if you are unsure whether they are worth sowing I try and convince you and show you how in my recent blog post.

Don’t forget to sow your biennials, happy sowing and enjoy picking flowers from your garden,

Higgledy Anne

(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)