Our front garden
Apart from the small square just outside the sitting room's window, our small garden is mainly made up of pots, loads of them.
In the autumn I plant them with spring bulbs, and once these are over in the spring, I replace them with dahlias and seedlings which I have started off in plastic pots in the garden.
This year we decided to change it slightly and put quite a number of lilies in the pots with the dahlias.
We've been very pleased with the results, and daily we go out and marvel at what's in bloom, and at how some of the flowers change colour and even shape.
Look for instance at this scabiosa:
The same variety of dahlia seems to differ from one specimen to another, like this dahlia "Jive":
The lilies have been quite wonderful, and brought more colour and fragrance to the garden:
We even have some double ones:
and a Peruvian spider lily
The real 'showstoppers' this year have probably been the 3 Gloriosa lilies that we bought (the tubers) at the RHS Flower Show in Cardiff.
We put them in the big pot with the metal frame where last year we had the Mina Lobatas.
Many people have commented on these beautiful, exotic-looking flowers:
We are delighted at how everything blends in
Among the dahlias, I particularly like the honkas
which are also bee-friendly, and the dark, unusual ones.
but I really love them all (well maybe with the exception of 'Snowflake', a white pompon dahlia - when we bought it, I didn't realise it was going to be so small).
The seedlings have quite a struggle to come up among the 'giants', but they contribute so much to the look and feel of a 'cottage garden'.
A poppy
now in flower:
I do the planting but Adrian does almost all of the watering, deadheading and staking, so it's really down to him that the garden looks so beautiful.
This year we also have to thank our friend Michael who, while we were in Sitges, came to water the garden every day and saved it from annihilation! (believe or not, there was a heatwave in London at the time).
In the autumn I plant them with spring bulbs, and once these are over in the spring, I replace them with dahlias and seedlings which I have started off in plastic pots in the garden.
This year we decided to change it slightly and put quite a number of lilies in the pots with the dahlias.
We've been very pleased with the results, and daily we go out and marvel at what's in bloom, and at how some of the flowers change colour and even shape.
Look for instance at this scabiosa:
The same variety of dahlia seems to differ from one specimen to another, like this dahlia "Jive":
The lilies have been quite wonderful, and brought more colour and fragrance to the garden:
We even have some double ones:
and a Peruvian spider lily
The real 'showstoppers' this year have probably been the 3 Gloriosa lilies that we bought (the tubers) at the RHS Flower Show in Cardiff.
We put them in the big pot with the metal frame where last year we had the Mina Lobatas.
Many people have commented on these beautiful, exotic-looking flowers:
We are delighted at how everything blends in
Among the dahlias, I particularly like the honkas
which are also bee-friendly, and the dark, unusual ones.
but I really love them all (well maybe with the exception of 'Snowflake', a white pompon dahlia - when we bought it, I didn't realise it was going to be so small).
The seedlings have quite a struggle to come up among the 'giants', but they contribute so much to the look and feel of a 'cottage garden'.
A poppy
now in flower:
I do the planting but Adrian does almost all of the watering, deadheading and staking, so it's really down to him that the garden looks so beautiful.
This year we also have to thank our friend Michael who, while we were in Sitges, came to water the garden every day and saved it from annihilation! (believe or not, there was a heatwave in London at the time).